postlo3w

Outside a filthy bar in Rimbor's most violent city, a muscular yellow-skinned woman tensed involuntarily at the sound of a familiar voice above her. "When Laurel Kent told us the Sklarian raider she lost on Cadmu used knives rather than firearms I knew that it must have been you, Atta." The Sklarian warrior spun on her heel and flung two daggers at Dawnstar before she'd even laid eyes on her. The winged Legionnaire snatched the blades out of the air faster than Atta's eyes could follow, then continued in a haughty tone. "Please. I move faster than the speed of light. There is no need for you to embarass yourself any further."

Atta saw that the Legion's tracker had not come alone; Wildfire floated beside her, his flight ring enabling him to hover in place without the telltale roar of anti-energy propulsion. "Shouldn't you be rotting in a jail cell somewhere?" Drake Burroughs asked, blasting the ground at Atta's feet and landing her on her tailbone. "You know, like the rest of your pals that our students captured?"

Atta climbed to her feet, drawing a large serrated machete from a sheath across her back. "I guess I've got friends in low places," she snarled.

"You can't be this stupid," Wildfire continued, unfazed by the Sklarian woman's weapon. He landed directly before her, Atta's angry face reflected in his visor. "Either that thing's not sharp enough to cut through my containment suit, or it is sharp enough and I go boom. Either result's not really a win for you, lady."

"If you're after the genesample I stole, you're too late Legionnaires." Atta replaced her blade, but stood in open opposition to the two heroes. "The delivery's already been made."

"We know that," Dawnstar responded. "You're going to tell us to whom that delivery was made."

"And why would I do that?" Atta smirked.

"Because until this morning I had a date planned with my lady," Wildfire answered her question, "And this is what we ended up doing instead. So now I've got a whole heap of frustration to get rid of, and you can either give up someone who can help me with that or I can take it out on you. I'm not fussed either way."

Salu Digby looked herself over one final time in the reflective surface of the Legion's turbolift, smoothing down some minor creases in her dark green suit. The door opened with an almost silent whoosh, and the petite Imskian woman nearly walked straight into Lightning Lass as she exited the turbolift. "I'm so sorry Ayla, I didn't mean to bowl you over!"

"Cal's friend is in some nu-bass band," Vi explained. Cal was Calorie Queen, the occasional heroine whom Shrinking Violet had been dating for the past few months. "Hey, actually I was looking for you earlier - do you and Light Lad want to tag along? We're going to grab dinner before the show anyway so you could get changed and meet us there if you like!"

"Darvan's out with his new doctor crush," Ayla replied. "And thanks for asking, but to be honest I'm really looking forward to a hot bath and bingewatching a bunch of Galactic Heart episodes."

"Oh, Ayla!" Vi's hand flew to her mouth. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even know that you and Darvan were having problems! If you need someone to talk to--"

Ayla laughed again and hugged her visibly confused friend. "You're sweet to worry, Vi...but please don't. Darvan and I are just friends with, well...extra benefits, I guess you could say. He's a great guy, but after Brin I'm not really in a rush to jump into another full-time relationship. If Darvan's found a connection with someone else, I'm 100% on side with it."

"I guess I'm more of a traditionalist," Vi blushed a little awkwardly. "If you change your mind, the offer still stands anyway - hit us up if you feel like heading out after all."

"Sure thing," Ayla squeezed Vi's shoulder. "Have fun if I don't see you!" Lightning Lass entered the turbolift and smiled as she recalled having passed Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl canoodling in one of the outdoor gardens earlier. Since Infectious Lass and Tellus had dealt with that weird conceptual virus, the past few days had been unusually sedate around here. With everyone being given the chance to actually relax for a change, it was nice to see so many happy couples about.

The turbolift stopped on Ayla's level and an intertwined Gravity Kid and Lullabye Lad almost fell through the opening doors. Gravity Kid cleared his throat and stood to attention, too mortified to meet Ayla's gaze. "...Uh, sorry Lightning Lass."

Ayla struggled not to giggle at the awkward teenagers. "It's okay boys...maybe do the rest of the Legion a favour and keep the groping to your quarters rather than the corridors though, huh?"

In civilian clothes, Querl Dox and Kara Zor-El were just two of more than 1.5 million sentients who came to Naltor annually to see the spectacle of the Crystal Falls. The waterfalls were nearly 3000 feet high and saturated with microscopic particles of luminite, a mineral found only on Naltor. Under normal conditions luminite was entirely unremarkable outside of the almost imperceptible rose tinge that it gave to any body of water in which it found its home; the mineral had an unusual reaction to kinetic energy however, bonding in clumps whenever in motion. As the luminite-rich waters cascaded over rocks and crevasses and finally found its way to a drop thousands of feet straight down, large chunks of golden and rose-coloured crystals filled the waterfalls and delighted visitors. Upon settling in the pool of water at the bottom of the falls, the luminite quickly separated once more into discrete almost invisible particles.

"I'm glad Dream Girl told me about this place," Kara gushed. "The falls are so pretty, thanks for coming Brainy."

The green-skinned genius smiled at his companion. "You're more than welcome, Kara. To tell the truth, I wanted to ensure that Naltor is making a speedy recovery after the conceptual virus anyway. Naltor is one of the most technologically advanced worlds in the United Planets, they were quite severely impacted here. Fortunately, a world of precognitives is very rarely completely unprepared for a crisis - things could have been far worse."

"Speaking of which," Kara turned her bright blue eyes away from the gleaming falls to face Brainiac 5, "How are you feeling? I was worried about you, you know."

"I know." Brainiac gingerly reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze before he let her go again. "And I appreciate the concern. Thankfully there appears to have been no long-term damage. After my prescribed period of rest, I'm sure I will be fine, as will the other remaining survivors. I'm led to believe that Infectious Lass and Tellus gave an exemplary performance in resolving the situation."

Kara took a few seconds to just enjoy being present with Querl. Their lives rarely allowed for these quiet moments, less so since Brainiac 5 had been elected leader of the Legion of Superheroes. "Brainy..?" she eventually asked in a voice filled with an unusual uncertainty.

"What is it, Kara?" the Coluan responded.

"I...I don't know how to say this. I can smash moons and fly in space on my own but this kind of thing is a new frontier for me, I guess."

Brainiac 5 gave the Kryptonian teenager his full attention. "I find the best way to say something is just to say it," he teased kindly.

Supergirl found herself dwelling in his eyes. "I...Brainy, what do you see...how do you see our relationship?" Kara's heart was pounding in her chest; fighting the Parasite was less nerve-wracking than this conversation!

"I care a great deal about you," Brainiac smiled. He held Kara's chin between his thumb and forefinger. "I acknowledge that our relationship is not one which is easy to define, Kara. Previously when you've come to the Legion's time, or when we have travelled to your past, we've not had to explore these questions. We both knew that it wasn't really possible for this connection between us to be built upon. I must admit, I thought that I had sensed a lack of interest on your part since you've been with the team these past few months. I thought that perhaps you had outgrown your attraction to me." He spoke with a tone that was completely matter of fact, but Supergirl respected how much Brainy was opening up to her.

"It's hard," Kara conceded. "I mean...there are no rules for what we are, are there? The last time I knew you, you were so much younger; and you're right Brainy, I think our circumstances always let us live this fantasy romance that never really had to exist in the real world. And now...now I live in your real world day in and day out, and I guess I've been too scared to put the fantasy to the test. I care a lot for you too...more than any guy I've met...but I guess I was worried that you had outgrown me! I mean I must be a dumb kid to you now..."

Brainiac shook Kara from her train of thought with a hearty laugh. "What's so funny?" she frowned.

"I'm sorry," Querl Dox collected himself. "It's just...Kara, I'm a Brainiac. There is no polite way to say this, but if intellectual capacity were going to divide us it would have done so the first day we met. I may have aged a few years physically since your last stint with the Legion of Superheroes, but there is no wider gap in our comparitive mental or emotional maturity. I'm very much still the same teenage boy who became infatuated with you at first sight - my facial hair just requires more regular grooming these days!"

Kara poked him in the ribs. "Was that your attempt at humour, Dox? I swear, you're such a dork." They both chuckled, feeling that a burden had been lifted in discussing what they'd both kept to themselves for so long.

"Brainy." Kara's smile faded and she held both of his hands in hers. "After the conceptual virus...after I came so close to - to losing you, I realised I don't want to let my fear dictate how I live anymore. Maybe there is no future for us...maybe I'll be back in my own time again tomorrow, or maybe it will be too hard to build a relationship based on what we've got so far. But I want to find that out for myself. What do you say?"

"I say...let us find out for ourselves." He squeezed her hands again, and leaned down for a kiss. They embraced tenderly, neither of them aware of the crowds of sentients milling about, or of anything else in the universe aside from each other.

**********Eventually, normal life had to intrude once more upon the young couple. After a heartlifting day on Naltor, Supergirl escorted Brainiac 5 back to the Legion of Superheroes' home on Mars. While the moons Phobos and Deimos made their way across a star-filled Martian sky, Supergirl sat on the roof of the base grinning like the lovestruck teenager she was finally allowing herself to be.

With her telescopic vision, she easily saw Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad at the main entrance many stories below. They were with their children Graym and Garridan, and the two young boys were waving at Laurel Kent flying off into the city. Watching her cousin's descendant speed off, Kara idly wondered if she'd ever meet any of her own descendants in this time. Or maybe, she thought dreamily, she'd have children in the 31st century one day just like Garth and Imra had. She pictured a little blonde-haired green girl running around and shook her head. Silly. Still, it was fun to think about.

Suddenly, Kara's head jerked up. Her super-hearing picked up her name being called out from the dayside of the planet, and the maid of might wasted no time in responding. Switching into her iconic costume before her name had been called more than once, she was over the horizon in almost the same amount of time.

Homing in on the frightened male voice, Supergirl found a middle-aged bald man sprawled out at the bottom of a pit used by Mars' ultra-fast magtrains. Poor guy must have fallen in, Kara thought as she approached. I thought security fields were meant to stop exactly this kind of thing from happening!

Her telescopic vision showed her that the next magtrain was less than five seconds away from killing the pale-skinned man and Kara elected to worry about how this had happened later...right now, all that mattered was saving his life. She scooped up the green and gold-garbed stranger and deposited him on a nearby walkway as the train whooshed by harmlessly beneath them.

"Sir, my x-ray vision isn't picking up any broken bones," she instructed as she helped him stand, "But I think it'd be a good idea for me to take you to the closest hospital anyway...I'm sure you've had a nasty shock."

"All in a day's work," Kara answered, her face screwing up as she looked the robed man up and down. There was something awfully familiar about him...she was sure she'd seen this pointy-eared man somewhere before. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking...why did you call out to me specifically? I was on the other side of the planet, it's just lucky that I heard you in time to help!"

"I assure you," the man said in a strangely reassuring tone, "Luck had nothing to do with it. And I called you here because Supergirl....I am going to help you."

Now that they were face-to-face, Supergirl saw that he wore a golden monocle. There was something in the way it gleamed, something that demanded her utmost attention. Some part of Kara Zor-El tried to raise an alarm, tried to tell her where she'd remembered this man, but her thoughts were like molasses.

Mutely, she watched the man she now realised was Universo raise a closed fist. "I'm going to help you see the truth," the villain continued speaking to his mesmerised subject. "The truth about your so-called friends in the Legion of Superheroes....the truth about your life...and your death. And all you need to do is put this on."

...He opened his fist, and there in the centre of his palm sat a solitary red ring.

Led by the Neocaste hero Quill King, four Legion Academy students descended through the Cadmu skies. Windowless buildings towered all around them, creating artificial canyons hundreds of stories deep. For all the advanced architecture here though, the neophyte heroes had seen barely a sign of life since their arrival.

"They call this the science planet, right?" Lullabye Lad asked their guide. "Whatever it is taking out all the geniuses must have hit Cadmu hard, it's like a ghost world here!"

"We have been affected more than a lot of other worlds," the aptly-named Quill King conceded, "But honestly, there's not a heck of a lot more sentients out and about even normally. Our population is a lot lower than the UP average, and most everything on Cadmu is automated. Anyway, this is our destination." He gestured to a balcony below them jutting out of one of the ubiquitous towers. "The Sklarian raiders our security web enountered are down there. They've disabled both security and sensors, but once we get inside the building I should be able to access those systems manually."

"We might be able to go one better," Laurel Kent offered. "Ultra Boy sent us here to help, time we earned our keep! Variable Lad, do you have a form with extranormal senses?"

Two of the young Jaquaan's three arms gripped his large purple head. "Extranormal...hmm, like penetra-vision..?" His features contorted in concentration and he transmorphed into a wiggling mass of hundreds of segmented wormlike strands that wasn't remotely humanoid.

Lullabye Lad was visibly disgusted but Gravity Kid and Laurel both managed to hide their instinctive revulsion. Laurel had seen Chameleon Boy and Chameleon Girl change shape dozens of times during her time at the Academy, but Variable Lad's transformations were always so much more unsettling. For his part, Quill King stared in open awe. "That's amazing!" the Cadmian hero beamed. "To be able to rewrite your own biology like that in an instant...we Neocaste have a variety of powers of course, but we're all limited within our individual powersets! How do you initiate the change, Variable Lad? How do you regulate your transformations?"

"Good questions, but maybe best kept for another time," Gravity Kid stepped in. "Oaa, what can you sense?"

"I don't have penetra-vision like I was hoping," a mouth somewhere deep inside the eyeless mass mumbled, "But this form does have a kind of hyperspatial awareness. It's difficult to describe my perceptions, but I can lead you to the raiders. There are six of them and they're armed. It looks like they're stealing data from that room there." Several of Variable Lad's thin appendages intertwined to form a thicker tendril and gestured at one of the building's walls.

"That's one of our top genelabs," Quill King scowled. "They could be taking highly sensitive research! Normally I wouldn't recommend casual destruction of property, but we don't have time to get in there using conventional means!"

"Say no more," Laurel gave a cheeky smirk. "Grav--"

"I'll get us in," Gravity Kid interrupted abruptly. "Everyone, be careful - Sklarian raiders have given the Legion a hard time in the past. Even without the mass-shifting powers some of them have, they're dangerous."

"It's so cute when you go into protective mode," Lullabye Lad teased his boyfriend.

Gravity Kid blushed slightly and flew ahead of the others without responding. Turning his attention to the wall that Variable Lad had pointed out, his power warped the gravitational forces around it and a moment later it had crumpled under its own vastly magnified weight.

Inside the sterile laboratory, three of the yellow-skinned women reacted almost immediately. Blaster fire converged on Gravity Kid before the stunned hero had a chance to even announce himself.

"You should follow your own advice," Laurel remarked with a hint of sarcasm as she darted in front of him to shield him from the barrage. "Sklarian raiders are dangerous, remember?"

"It's rude to come to my planet and steal our things, and it's extremely rude to shoot at our guests," Quill King taunted the women. He returned their fire with a volley of his own quills, disarming two of the criminals. While they struggled with the quills embedded in their arms, the third shooter realised that Laurel must be invulnerable and turned her gun on Quill King.

"You're really not very nice, are you?" Lullabye Lad pouted. "By the way, that was my boyfriend you just tried to kill so you're lucky the worst I can do is put you nasty nassheads to sleep!" The Zwennite teenager's power was less dynamic than some of his fellow students, but no less effective. All three of the Sklarians slumped to the floor unconscious.

"We've got what we need and killing a pack of stupid children and some backwater superhero doesn't interest me in the slightest," the most muscular of the remaining women barked. "Let's get out of here." She leaped from the hole that Gravity Kid had created and fell straight down. A few stories below, she pulled two massive knives from sheathes across her back and plunged the knives into the wall of the building. The knives brought her to a halt and powerful leg muscles kicked her off the wall to a walkway circling the neighbouring tower. The last two raiders phased through the floor of the genelab to the room below.

"Gravity Kid," Laurel faced her fellow student. "Go after--"

"I'm on it!" he cut Laurel off again. Gravity Kid began to follow the knifewoman as she fled across balconies and elevated walkways, but Laurel intercepted him and placed a hand on his exposed chest before he could fly more than a couple of feet.

"No!" she snapped, annoyed. "Quill King and I can handle the one with the knives, the other two can phase! You and Lullabye Lad are the only ones whose powers will affect them, take Variable Lad with you so you can track them down!"

Tel hated to admit it, but she was right. Grudgingly, he collected the other boys and left Laurel and Quill King together. "I hope we haven't lost her," Laurel muttered as she veered off in pursuit of her prey. "If Tel didn't insist on grandstanding every possible nano the opportunity presented itself we might have had them all by now!"

"Gravity Kid seems very eager to prove himself," Quill King replied. "Try not to be too hard on him."

"I think he's just jealous the Legion gave me an internship and not him," the indestructible girl continued. "I mean I get it, he's all about joining the Legion of Superheroes and then I come back and he must think I stole his thunder...but how does he think I feel? My friends are actual Legionnaires and I'm still the baby of the -- watch out!" She caught a gleam in her peripheral vision and raced to block three shining daggers flying straight at her Cadmian ally. One of the blades bounced harmlessly off of Laurel's outstretched arm, but the second took a gash out of Quill King's shoulder and the third struck his flight belt. The device sparked and sputtered, and Quill King plummeted like a rock.

Laurel looked from the swiftly falling Quill King to his attacker perched on a ledge above. She was reasonably certain she could take the blue-haired Sklarian out with a quick charge attack, but she wasn't at all confident she'd be quick enough to fight her and rescue Quill King as well. "Sprock it!" Laurel snarled through gritted teeth as she dived after him. She knew she was handing the woman her escape on a platter, but there was no contest. If there was one lesson that Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Damsel had drummed into Laurel Kent above all others, it was that saving lives always took precedence over beating up bad guys. Her flight ring enabled Laurel to catch up to him easily, and her unbreakable skin meant his quills were no threat to her. She manouvred herself beneath him and matched his speed, grabbing him around the waist and taking him to a nearby balcony. "We better get you to a medical facility," Laurel said as she helped him stand. "How are you feeling?"

"It's just a surface wound," Quill King answered. "And I heal quickly, the wound is already starting to close over."

Laurel could see that he had in fact stopped bleeding and the cut seemed smaller than it had been moments ago. "I'm so sorry," she blurted. "We came here to help and we didn't help at all. Maybe Cosmic Boy was right, maybe I'm not ready for this."

"And maybe Gravity Kid is not the only student overly eager to prove himself," Quill King smiled wryly. "You saved my life, Laurel Kent - and I'm under no illusions as to my ability to be able to deal with those raiders alone. I guarantee you I wouldn't have had any more success if you'd not been here."

"I guess," the blue-eyed girl stared glumly into Cadmu's skies above. She knew that she should be focusing on her successes as much as her failures, that was something else her teachers had drummed into her. She couldn't help but feel however that her failure today was going to have more of an impact than her successes would...

Dr Richard Kent Shakespeare leaned back from a floating pile of hardlight screens in an advanced laboratory space nestled in the bowels of Medicus One. It was here that the men whom Kid Computo had named the Titan Triad had conducted the ghoulish experiments which had left both their unwilling patient and themselves dead. Kent had just spent half an hour trying his best to comprehend exactly what it was that they'd done, and more importantly how every other impacted sentient in the United Planets could be spared from the same grim doom. A sonic mat thrummed almost imperceptibly as it supported Kent's muscled back, and he swivelled in his orthopedic seat to face six Legionnaires anxiously awaiting his diagnosis.

Kent pinched the bridge of his nose. "I...think...I can confirm what Blok gleaned from this data when he read through it himself. It seems that our rather ambitious Titanian doctors were on a mission to elevate the cognitive abilities of every sentient in the United Planets to Coluan standards; which might be a laudable goal if they'd not had to torture this poor Somahturian boy to death to achieve it or if they'd perhaps asked the average citizen of the United Planets if we wanted to undergo a procedure so far divorced from any accepted medical practice that it might as well be sorcery. No offence, Dragonmage."

"None taken, Doctor." The green-clad teenager nodded respectfully.

"There are some viruses that can force a host's body to strengthen certain characteristics as an immune response," Infectious Lass mused aloud. "Kathooni Divine Touch very occasionally gives its victims super-strength as a farewell gift....I mean, nothing on Night Girl's level of course, but greater than Kathooni people are normally capable of achieving on their own. Do you think those horrible...things...they did to Durran Mahn were meant to replicate something like that, but for brains..?"

"I don't know, Drura..." Light Lad bit his thumbnail. "...Giving someone increased strength is actually pretty easy with modern bioscience. I mean whether you're changing the physical makeup of someone's muscle and bone structure or playing around with adrenal output or whatever, it's not....well, it's not brain surgery, is it? But there's a reason we compare anything difficult to brain surgery, because brains are so much more complex. I can't see a virus being able to effect that kind of a change on a large scale, especially when we're talking about a diverse range of species like we know have been afflicted..."

"Umm, I don't want to be that guy," Kid Computo raised her hand to speak, "But Light Lad, I think you're overanalysing this. You don't have any screws loose. You know it's a super irresponsible idea to go around designing viruses to transform people's brains en masse...these guys were obviously space crazy and they made their dumb virus thinking it would work and then--" she paused to mime a knife slicing her throat and took on the melodramatic tone of a horror holo presenter "--they paid the price! Seems pretty cut and dry to me!"

Darvan sighed in exasperation. "Danielle, please don't use that term...you know I hate it when the psychologically unwell are used for a punchline. And stop watching those shinzy old holos your brother keeps digging up," he added as an afterthought to ease the tension. Danielle made a silly face at him in response. All of these Legionnaires were out of their element and all of them were acutely aware that if they didn't do their absolute best to work with what they had, they'd be letting down not only their friends but a large portion of the galaxy. The frustration was starting to wear on even the most easy-going of them.

"I see where you're both coming from," Kent cut in diplomatically. "Darvan is right however...expecting one virus, even a custom-made virus, to be able to physically restructure the brains of countless sentients, and at the speed this has happened...it's not feasible. And these men may have had absolutely abhorrent ethics, but all three of them were incredibly gifted intellectually. They'd have known immediately that wasn't a path worth taking."

"Then...there is no virus..?" Tellus asked in plain confusion.

Now it was Kent who sighed, though his vexation was borne of the knowledge that everything he was about to say was almost purely guesswork. Still, Blok had come to the same conclusion while Kent was en route to the lab, and when all was said and done it was the only lead they had to work with. As completely unbelievable as it seemed, it must be the truth. He cleared his throat, stood up and straightened his posture. If he was going to try and sell this, he'd have to present as much confidence as he could muster.

"It seems that the Titanian doctors used psitech of their own construction to twist Durran Mahn's symbiosis with viruses and bacteria to create an...an entirely new class of life. A conceptual virus. I mean, it's...it's basically a destructive meme. It's the most outlandish thing I've ever come across, I can't even believe I'm standing here talking about it with you all."

"I don't get it," Danielle Foccart shrugged. "You're saying they only created the idea of a virus? How could that possibly be dangerous?"

"Ideas can be very dangerous in a figurative sense," Kent replied. "In this case though, the danger's more literal than symbolic. This conceptual virus travels at the speed of thought from one mind to the next trying to infect everyone it comes across. The intention was for it to plant itself in our minds, to change the way we use our synaptic networks in an effort to comprehend it, and in doing so essentially upgrade our minds."

"So what went wrong?" Light Lad asked.

"My best guess," the brawny doctor continued, "Is that the conceptual virus succeeds in altering synaptic behaviour too well. Looking at both bio-scans and psi-scans knowing what we know now, it's not hard to believe that our patients' condition is a result of their minds burning themselves out trying to comprehend an incomprehensible idea."

"I have a question," Infectious Lass asked once she'd processed everything Kent had just told them.

"Why aren't we sick?" Kent anticipated his longtime friend's concern. He gave a dark chuckle. "Ironically, we're not smart enough to grasp the concept in the first place. This memetic organism which was intended to improve our mental faculties is so advanced that it requires a higher than normal level of intelligence for it to take root at all."

"So what we're looking at," Kid Computo summarised, "Is a virus which only exists as a thought, so Infectious Lass can't control it...and a thought which is too advanced for Tellus to comprehend so he can't control it. So basically...we're sprocked."

"There is always hope," Dragonmage countered his teammate. "Even if we can't see that just yet."

Blok, who had been pondering the situation in silence this whole time, finally joined the discourse. "Perhaps if we cannot comprehend this threat sufficiently to combat it, we need to change the way we are looking for it."

"We know that Tellus cannot detect the conceptual virus," Blok explained, "Just as most of us here are incapable of detecting viruses in the physical world without specialised tools. Infectious Lass can detect and interact with viruses on the physical plane, but she has no ability to access the psionic plane."

Infectious Lass beamed as she picked up on where Blok was heading. "...You think Tellus and I might succeed working together where we've failed individually?"

Tellus remembered his recent mind merge with Wildfire, the way his interpretation of his surroundings had so drastically altered. "My friends, I believe this plan is worth further investigation. Infectious Lass, I must warn you that the level of rapport necessary for this will involve a true blending of our innermost selves. Simple telepathic contact will not suffice for us to be able to combine our perceptions as Blok has suggested. I assure you there is no danger, but we will be connected on a deeper level than I know to describe. If privacy is a concern--"

"I can surrender my privacy for the chance to save our friends," Drura interrupted without hesitation. "How do we do this?"

"I recommend that you make yourself comfortable," the electronic monotone of Tellus' voice modulator instructed before he continued telepathically, <And allow my mind to wash over yours.>

Soon, Drura Sehpt sat in a slightly reclined chair with her eyes closed and her hands clasped loosely in her lap. Tellus was motionless before her, his massive forelimbs supporting his weight with his smaller hindlimbs and tail curled beneath him. His helmeted face was mere inches from Drura's white skin, the pods on his back gradually shifting through a variety of soft pastel colours.

Kent Shakespeare watched the two in open fascination while Light Lad allowed himself a slight smirk at Kent's expression. Darvan knew that blend of awe and curiosity well, he'd experienced it himself many times when he'd first joined the Legion. Dragonmage had taken advantage of the lull to retreat to a corner of the lab where he floated now in restorative meditation, and Blok subtly kept a protective eye over all of them. Kid Computo had grown tired of observing Tellus and Infectious Lass almost immediately; she didn't see the appeal in watching her teammates just sit there like statues, and at any rate it was way more fun watching Kent and Darvan's growing attraction play out before her. Danielle understood the gravity of the situation as well as any of them, but she thought it was cute that in the midst of all of this two people could still make a connection.

Drura Sehpt looked around without opening her eyes. The material confines of Medicus One were ethereal, walls so ghostly she felt she could dispel them like dye in water with a wave of her hand. By contrast, Kent Shakespeare and Drura's fellow Legionnaires glowed with a warm interior light which somehow gave them more substance than the space station enclosing them. Beyond the now translucent walls she could see other lights, sentients living and breathing all around them. She looked down, and saw her own phantom body sitting peacefully. Drura flinched at the sight.

<All is well>, Tellus soothed her. The Hykraian's astral form glowed brighter than any of them combined and in a way that Drura was unable to enunciate, his light was combined with hers while still somehow separate. <Joined at this level we simply share perceptions,> he explained gently.

His intent washed over Drura like a warm tide and she found herself comforted by that more than his words. <Tellus, is this what it's like for you all the time?> she asked in wonder. <Is this how you see the world?>

<In a manner of speaking,> Tellus replied. <My own senses have not overcome yours, Infectious Lass. With this bond and by the grace of Great Mother Ocean, we compliment one another equally. This experience is new for me also; I never realised that your bond with the small life of the universe was so joyous!> Drura could feel it plainly; Tellus was no less awestruck than she. She savoured the feeling. Drura had long since resigned herself to the knowledge that in choosing the life she had chosen, she'd given up the unique sense of community that she'd had on Somahtur. Even Jacques with all of his affection for her couldn't comprehend what it meant for Drura to share herself with countless numbers of microscopic lifeforms. On her homeworld, a Somahturian's bond with small life was almost a sacred thing; anywhere else in the galaxy it was seen as a useful if discomforting asset at best and a curse at worst.

Feeling Tellus' reverence reminded Drura just how special her symbiosis was, and she realised that her reaction to their merging of minds had given Tellus the same gift. Despite their very different backgrounds, the two heroes shared one thing in common; in wanting to explore the universe beyond their homeworlds they'd both had to give up a great deal. They allowed themselves a moment to bathe in their mutual eddie of emotions.

<Okay, enough of the love-in,> Drura took charge. <Where do we go from here? How do we find this conceptual virus thing?>

<In the depths of Great Mother Ocean, sometimes it is best to allow her currents to take us where she will,> Tellus answered cryptically. Drura didn't really understand the meaning of his words, but she got the gist of his message. The two were merged, but it was not a static combination. One mind naturally subsumed another, then their positions would change. At times they seemed almost one consciousness, and then Drura would realise she was seeing Tellus from the outside once again. She got the sense that trying to force dominance wouldn't accomplish anything; for this intense connection to maintain itself, they had to just let it happen. And it was as she made that precise realisation that Drura Sehpt found exactly what it was they were looking for. She called Tellus' name excitedly.

Tellus had made the discovery along with his Somahturian comrade. Like a constantly shifting 4th-dimensional puzzle box, they saw a vaguely defined construct encompassing each of their friends. The individual constructs were part of a larger whole, connected to one another in a fragile ever-moving lattice which spread as far as they could see. <This is why the virus maintains its strength over interstellar space,> it dawned on Tellus. <This conceptual virus is not a collective of individual lifeforms, it is one eternally sprawling mass...its individual strands may weaken with distance, but its victims are not fighting an individual strand; they are fighting one entity so immense that no sentient mind could stand against it!>

<Immense and unnatural,> Drura added with a hint of sadness. <This is a perversion of life...this is a perversion of Durran Mahn's gift...and it's lonely, Tellus. It's so lonely.> Drura's astral form extended one luminescent hand toward the entity, and Tellus' initial instinct was to caution her...but then he recognised the truth as plainly as she did; this creature had been borne of symbiosis and set afrift in a universe without a host. This concept the three Titanians had created which was so unknowable that sentients died trying to understand it was the most primal need that any living being could know.

It just didn't want to be alone.

Drura Sehpt made contact with the conceptual virus, and at first there was no visible effect. Tellus and Drura both felt it immediately though; a painless jolt which reverberated at thoughtspeed through the twitching turning organism all around them. In less time than it took to realise that it was happening, the conceptual virus turned back on itself. It surrendered its hold on every one of its victims across the vast spread of the United Planets, and it compacted itself until it surrounded only Tellus and Infectious Lass.

<We did it!> Drura rejoiced. She could sense something approximating contentment from the psionic entity, a sense that it had fulfilled its imperative to find symbiosis. Moreover, she could feel through Tellus that tortured minds all throughout Medicus One had finally found a measure of peace. It was over. Then something else occurred to the young Somahturian. <Oh no, Tellus...the virus is no longer spreading because it's found a compatible host but...the only reason we're a compatible host is because of the combination of our abilities! When our minds unmerge...>

<...We will no longer be able to offer symbiosis,> Tellus completed the sentence. He shared Drura's sadness, but he also shared her knowledge that this was necessary. As a living habitat to disease, Infectious Lass was well acquainted with nature's cycle of life and death. She was just glad that in the end they'd been able to help Durran Mahn's legacy not be one of galaxy-wide decimation.

Drura felt that Tellus was about to end the mind merge and then suddenly, almost abruptly, she found herself back in the chair. Her lavender eyes blinked a few times as she adjusted once more to physical reality and she placed one delicate hand on Tellus' shoulder, still hunched in the same position before her. She looked soulfully into his round dark eyes, and though his face remained an expressionless mask the two shared a mutual wistfulness as the last remnants of their bond evaporated.

"Is it working?" Light Lad asked. "Can you sense the virus?"

"It is done," Tellus answered for them both. "The conceptual virus will hurt nobody ever again."

Infectious Lass was glad that Tellus had taken the lead. His voice modulator would betray no emotion, and she wasn't ready just yet to try and explain why their victory felt bittersweet.

**********KIRINYAGAPauvitz Point, Portela Mountain Ranges

The dark-skinned teenager named Mwindaji watched curiously as his patient finished the soup he'd been given. Kirinyaga was far from the centre of United Planets activity, and while the effects of the conceptual virus had reached this world, any official explanation of the malady had not. All Mwindaji knew was that this Vidar man had succumbed to a mysterious ailment which had left him unconscious for more than a day, and that he had just as quickly recovered. Vidar had consulted with his miraculous green and gold rings, and while they still didn't know what had struck him down he assured Mwindaji that the teen had never been in any danger and that Vidar himself was now fine.

"You do seem more healthy to me," Mwindaji commented in his clipped Interlac, taking the empty soup bowl away.

"I give you my word that I am indeed much healthier," Vidar smiled. "Mwindaji, twice I am in your debt now. You helped me when I first came to this world, and again when I fell ill. I hate to impose upon you again, but before I passed out...I seem to remember that you mentioned you're a tracker of some skill?"

Mwindaji puffed out his chest. "I may be the finest tracker on all Kirinyaga," he stated proudly. From somebody else this claim might sound arrogant, but Vidar got the sense that Mwindaji was simply stating a fact as he knew it.

"...And you'd be willing to help me find the remaining five rings? To bring an end to violence and fear throughout all worlds?"

"The name I have chosen for myself, Mwindaji," the youth explained, "It is the name of a great hero from Kirinyaga's distant past. An explorer and one of the forefathers of my people. I chose this name so that I may honour him, and now my path has crossed your own. I feel that the great Mwindaji smiles down upon me, that he has given me this opportunity to forge a destiny to make my ancestors and my blood proud." He thumped one closed fist against his chest and stood bolt upright. "Vidar, it would be my privilege to assist any way I can in this endeavour. I pledge myself to your cause."

"Excellent." Vidar climbed out of bed and used his rings to clothe himself in an armoured green and gold outfit, a high-collared green cape with golden interior billowing dramatically behind him. He clapped a hand on Mwindaji's shoulder and bared a toothy grin.

Matter-Eater Lad aka Tenzil Kem: can eat inorganic matter in all its forms

Mon-El aka Lar Gand: Daxamite physiology

Night Girl aka Lydda Jath Krinn: photosensitive super-strength

Nightwind aka Berta Skye Haris: wind control

Phantom Girl aka Tinya Wazzo: intangibility

Polar Boy aka Brek Bannin: cold and ice generation

Quislet: energy being, temporary matter animation

Shadow Lass aka Tasmia Mallor: darkness generation

Shrinking Violet aka Salu Digby: shrinking

Star Boy aka Thom Kallor: celestial mass-transference

Stone Boy aka Dag Wentim: ability to transmute to living stone

Supergirl aka Kara Zor-El: Kryptonian physiology

Tellus aka Ganglios: telepathy and telekinesis

Timber Wolf aka Brin Londo: super-strength & super-agility

Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: deputy leader;ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

Wildfire aka Drake Burroughs: anti-energy being

Ultra Boy paced the floor of the Legion’s colossal meeting room, hands folded tensely across his chest. Before him 32 other Legionnaires sat in a similarly agitated state, along with the student body of the Legion Academy.

“Okay!” Jo Nah announced loudly, catching the attention of dozens of metahumans in mid-conversation with one another. “This is what we’ve got. It looks like every sentient with a higher than usual level of intelligence in the entire UP has fallen victim to the same attack. Our leader who also happens to be the guy who usually does our thinking for us is one of those victims so we’re gonna have to figure out a way to fix this ourselves. Ideas?”

“How do we even know it’s an attack?” Wildfire asked. “Nobody’s come forward to claim responsibility!"

“It’s also worth noting that it’s affected sentients from all walks of life,” Chameleon Boy pondered out loud. “We’ve had reports from Takron-Galtos of prisoners experiencing the same symptoms as our own colleagues. If this is a pre-meditated attack, it’s very indiscriminatory.”

Ultra Boy stopped before Dragonmage. “Have we confirmed it’s not magic? It hit everyone at the same time, and I’d have no problem believing someone like Mordru could be powerful enough to pull this off.”

Dragonmage shook his head in response. “No, there’s definitely no sorcerous cause behind it. I also took the added precaution of asking Glorith to assist with a scrying spell in case my own magic wasn’t up to the task.” Hidden behind her hood, the introverted student sorceress nodded mutely at the sound of her name.

“If I may offer a suggestion,” Blok’s gravelly voice filled the room, “You said that all of the victims were affected at the same time Ultra Boy, but this is not entirely true. Reports do seem to have taken longer to arrive from certain worlds than others, this may indicate that there is an origin point from which this enigma has spread?”

Timber Wolf scoffed openly. “Pebblehead, you want us to go through data from sprock knows how many worlds to map some kinda pattern? By the time we do that our buddies could be dead!”

“I’ll do it,” Supergirl stood up. “If it helps Brainy and the others—“

“No,” Shrinking Violet disagreed. “I hate to say it, but Timber Wolf’s right. Factoring in how long it took for victims to be confirmed, how long it would take for the news to reach us…it’s an unrealistic goal, there must be a better use of our time.”

“Guys,” Kid Computo uttered before she was interrupted by Star Boy.

“There are nearly 50 of us in this room!” Thom shouted. “Surely we’re capable of following different trails! I’m not going to watch the woman I love die because some of us can’t look past their own cynicism to contribute anything helpful!”

Danielle Foccart tried a third time to get her team’s attention, but by this time the room had erupted into a chaotic din. Frustrated, she opened a channel to every one of their flight rings and broadcast her voice at maximum volume. “Guys!!” The room stopped and turned to her. Danielle sighed and spoke at her normal volume again. “Cyber-empathy, remember? I can collate all the data we need in a few minutes as soon as I’ve got access to it!”

“Okay then.” Ultra Boy took command before anybody had a chance to take them off course again. “Kid C, go do what you need to do and tell me what you come up with. Cham, keep working with the SP to look up any criminal leads. Matter-Eater Lad, take half the Academy to Colu. Laurel, take the other half to Cadmu. They’re the two most technologically advanced worlds in the UP, they’ve both lost a lot of their brains trust right now.”

Laurel Kent was visibly taken aback. “You - you’re sending me to lead a squad on my own? Without a Legion minder?”

“Is that wise, Ultra Boy?” Cosmic Boy began to rise from his seat. “I mean no disrespect to Laurel at all, but —“

“If I was wise, I’d be burning up in our sickbay right now with Brainy and the others,” Ultra Boy interrupted abruptly. “I’m doing the best I can in a lousy situation Cos, and we all need to do the same. We made Laurel an intern because we thought she had the stuff - this is her chance to prove it. She’ll be working with what’s left of the Neocaste, that’s more than we had a lot of the time when we were her age.”

“What about the rest of us?” Wildfire asked.

Ultra Boy had anticipated the question and answered without hesitation. “With a lot of the people who keep the UP running out of commission right now, there’s no shortage of craziness to keep us occupied. I’m sending you out to the places that can probably best use our help.”

Star Boy looked up from his holoscreen. “Ultra Boy, I don’t see my name anywhere on these squads.”

“That’s because we’re going to need someone to stay with Brainy and the others in the sickbay…you and Supergirl are it. And before either of you complain, you’re not being benched. We need to know straight away if their conditions change, and if this is the first stage of some kind of assault we’ll need to make sure they’ve got protection while they can’t defend themselves.” Ultra Boy stood up and walked towards the door. “Right then, let’s go Legion!”

As the team took their deputy leader’s lead and made their way out of the room, Kid Computo pushed through her teammates to catch Jo Nah before he got too far away. “Ultra Boy, wait!”

Ultra Boy stopped in his tracks, Phantom Girl at his side. “What is it, Kid C?”

“I think I’ve got the point of origin that Blok talked about, and well…I know what Drura said, but she might have ruled out this being a disease a little too soon.”

“If I’m right…and I don’t see any reason to think otherwise…all of this started on Medicus One!”

Ultra Boy hoped that it was just a morbid coincidence that this mysterious event had come from Earth’s most famous medical facility. What kind of disease could affect an entire galaxy almost simultaneously? And how could the Legion begin to fight that? “Let me juggle some of the squad rosters,” Jo replied. “I’ll give you a team to take there, see what you can dig up.”

The first thing that Star Boy and Supergirl saw when they entered the Legion’s highly advanced sickbay was Lightning Lad hunched over his wife’s inert form. He gripped one of her hands tightly in his own and his eyes were bloodshot. In individual beds beside Saturn Girl lay the four active members of the team who had also been stricken. “Grife, Garth.” Star Boy placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You look terrible, pal. Why don’t you take a break and go get some fresh air?”

Lightning Lad was visibly startled at the touch. “No,” he said a little too sharply. “I need to be here for when Imra wakes up.”

“Do you want me to get you anything?” Supergirl asked. “A drink, something to eat?”

“I’m fine,” he uttered through gritted teeth. He saw the look that Thom and Kara exchanged, and released a deep exhalation. “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “I know you’re just trying to help and I know how I must look. I haven’t left Imra’s side since she collapsed. It’s just…since all of this started I’ve been feeling an escalating tension, beyond just being worried sick about the woman I love and feeling helpless. I think…I think it’s our rapport, I can’t help but get a sense of the pain she must be feeling. And it’s getting worse every minute, and I can’t do a damn thing but watch her suffer.” His voice cracked and he looked as though he were being torn apart on the inside.

Supergirl felt a pang of sympathy. She was filled with dread for Brainiac 5, she couldn’t imagine how much worse this must be for Lightning Lad having to watch his wife suffer the same fate. Kara silently chided herself; this whole time she’d been with the Legion, she’d treated it like one extended vacation. In her heart of hearts, she didn’t really know how she felt about Brainiac 5. There was definitely a connection there, one which was strong enough to have prevented her from pursuing a burgeoning attraction to Shadow Lad when he’d been on the team. But while Kara had only been absent from the team for months, years had passed for the Legion. She’d become a part of Brainiac 5’s past before he’d even been a real part of her life at all.

The blonde Kryptonian stood by Querl Dox’s side and uttered a silent prayer to Rao that he wasn’t fated to become one more person for her to have loved and lost. She knew one thing for certain, this was her life now…and if Brainiac 5 recovered then Kara Zor-El would do everything in her considerable power to find out exactly what role she wanted him to play in it.

As their cruiser docked with Medicus One, six heroes waited patiently for the airlock door to open and grant them entry to the renowned medical satellite. “There’s something I don’t understand,” Light Lad puzzled. He looked up at Blok, one of the only Legionnaires the tall Winathian actually could look up to. “Why do you think it is that you haven’t you been affected by whatever this is, Blok? Your intelligence was enhanced along with your physical characteristics, right?”

The stone giant’s head turned toward Darvan with a slight creaking sound, the golden veins which covered his surface glinting as they caught the light. “I have considered the matter myself,” Blok replied thoughtfully. “In truth, I do not know. It may be that the wisdom of Solomon is not a quantifiable intelligence in the sense that United Planets sentients generally consider. Perhaps the magical origin of my amplified power protects me, or perhaps some such as myself, Supergirl and Mon-El are simply hardy enough to resist whatever has caused this ailment. We may find the answer to your question here if we are fortunate, Light Lad.”

“I’m surprised Sun Boy’s down and out with the others,” Kid Computo remarked. “He never really struck me as being particularly umm…gifted.”

“Since leaving Hykraius,” Tellus volunteered, “I have found that most sentients possess more depth than they display…Sun Boy exemplifies this truth as much as anybody I have encountered.”

With an almost silent whoosh, the Legionnaires saw Dr Richard Kent Shakespeare standing in place of a closed metal door. He was broad-shouldered and square-jawed, but his holo-star looks were currently tempered by obvious exhaustion. “Kent!” Infectious Lass rushed forward. “Thanks so much for greeting us, I know you must be terribly busy!”

“Busy isn’t the word for it,” he squeezed Drura’s hand in his own gloved hands. “You know I’ve always got time for you though, especially if the Legion can help us get to the bottom of this. Our best minds are out of commission and the rest of us are struggling to even come to terms with the scope of this tragedy, let alone find out what’s causing it.”

“I hope this doesn’t come out the wrong way,” Infectious Lass continued as the beleaguered doctor led them through the hospital, “But I’m glad you weren’t affected.”

“I won’t lie,” Kent gave her a sardonic smirk, “It’s a little bit of a blow to the ego, but I’m not really in a position to complain.”

“Grife,” Danielle whispered to Dragonmage, “I can see why my brother’s jealous of this guy…he’s the whole package, isn’t he?”

“I…suppose..?” the young sorcerer agreed weakly. For all of his mystical knowledge, he had precious little experience in the sphere of relationships. Infectious Lass had told them on the way here that Dr Shakespeare was the first friend she'd made after leaving her planet. Surely if there were any romantic interest between them it would have developed before now…once again, Xao Jin was reminded that life’s capacity for education was infinite.

“Dr Shakespeare, do you have any idea at all where this may have originated?” Light Lad asked. He’d expected the satellite to be in chaos, but while medical staff were rushing perhaps a little more anxiously than usual from one task to the next this was a far cry calmer than he knew any Winathian hospital would be right now. It seemed there was a reason Medicus One enjoyed the sterling reputation that it did.

“We have no idea where this came from,” Kent answered wearily. “Honestly, until you contacted us to let us know our facility was the origin point we didn’t even know that much. Oh, and please…call me Kent, Light Lad.”

“Only if you call me Darvan,” the attractive strawberry blond shot back automatically.

Blok had a sudden inspiration. “Are there any patients or staff on board whom you would expect to be impacted by this malady but have not been? If this is a conscious attack of some kind, it stands to reason that its culprit must be highly intelligent themselves to have orchestrated all of this.” He didn’t want to voice his suspicions aloud just yet, but the Dryadian very clearly remembered when the villainous Universo had almost permanently defeated the Legion of Superheroes by isolating its most intelligent members.

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Kent gave the question some consideration. “There are a lot of sentients on board this satellite though, and I don’t personally know all of them. I guess I could have one of our personnel droids compile a list…bear in mind that it won’t be complete, I mean we don’t generally give people an IQ test before they come on board.”

“But you do run psychological profiles, right?” Light Lad piped up. “I mean it’s a necessary part of the screening process for new staff and it should be part of a holistic health approach for a large cross-section of patients!”

“A fellow professional I see,” Kent grinned.

Darvan cleared his throat, mildly embarrassed. “I was an orderly back home…on Winath, I mean. But yeah, I guess I paid attention. If you’d be happy to let Kid Computo and me at your database, I think working together we should be able to come up with some way to track the results we’re looking for…and let you get back to helping the people who really need you right now.”

Kent turned down a corridor and led the Legionnaires to a small empty office. “Seems like maybe you were lucky to escape a hospital bed too, Darvan! Quite the brain on you…feel free to use this office and feel free to let me know if there’s anything else I can do to assist.” He left the Legionnaires and continued through the satellite on his own.

It wasn’t long before Light Lad and Kid Computo had found the anomaly for which they’d been searching. As they walked through the satellite’s lower levels, Danielle shared with the Legionnaires what it was that she and Darvan had discovered. “Doctors Marlak Moris, Carta Zorlo and Wlasky Slav,” the young girl gleaned directly from the data bouncing around them invisibly throughout Medicus One. “Three Titanian specialists in the fields of neurology and psychology. Guys, they’re ticking every one of the crazy villain boxes…they’ve been in trouble with various authorities and ethics committees on Titan and abroad, and from their notes they came to Medicus One along with around a million other scientists and doctors to study Durran Mahn with some kind of grand plan in mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Dragonmage interrupted, “Who is Durran Mahn..?”

“A Somahturian refugee,” Danielle explained. “My brother and I saved him from some of the Judgement League a little while back.”

“It is,” Drura answered quietly. “My people aren’t supposed to leave Somahtur, our natural state is to share our bodies with the small life of the universe - the viruses and bacteria that make everybody else sick. Some of us though…some of us love our world more than anything, but we want more out of existence. We want to see the stars and the planets, and the wide teeming life which exists outside of the life that we already know. So we break quarantine to leave our planet. This boy Durran found out what I discovered when I left Somahtur…life is hard for a Somahturian off-world. The people who aren’t scared of us see as lab specimens. I know it’s necessary for him to be quarantined here until it’s safe for him and everyone else for him to leave…but it’s not at all fun.”

“Which brings us to the Titan Triad’s lair.” Kid Computo stopped outside a sealed door adorned with holographic Interlac signs telling them in no uncertain terms that intrusion was unwelcome. “They’ve been holed up in this lab with our Somahturian friend since before any of this began, and looking at their history they definitely qualify as smart enough to be affected by this thing. Transuits on just in case everyone, I’ll — huh.”

“What is it, Danielle?” Infectious Lass asked.

“They’ve shut themselves off from the rest of Medicus One’s network,” Danielle Foccart stood with her hands on her hips. “That’s rude!”

“I could use my telekinesis to gain entry,” Tellus offered, “Though I am not sensing any active minds inside, Kid Computo. They may have left if their plan has come to fruition already?”

“I don’t think so,” Danielle concentrated, sticking the tip of her tongue out from between clamped lips. “Psi-baffling technology, I’m shutting it down now. Lots of standard privacy tech too, they really didn’t want to be interrupted! The day hasn’t come that a computer said no to me though.” She theatrically threw her arms wide and the thick lab door opened in accord. “Ta-daah!”

“Allow me to enter first,” Blok took point. “We do not know what dangers we shall face inside.”

“I don’t think that’s likely to be an issue, Blok.” Light Lad stepped around the large hero and made his way to three wizened old men laying dead on the floor, their eyes staring glassy at the ceiling. “I recognise them from their holos, this is Moris, Zorlo and Slav.”

Before them lay the Somahturian teen, but he was far beyond their help. The top of his head had been cut open, and all sorts of exotic wires and tools pierced his exposed brain. Needles fed fluid in to and out of his naked body from the neck down. Drura hid her face in her hands and Kid Computo placed a comforting arm around her brother’s girlfriend’s shoulders.

“What - what did they do to this poor boy?” Dragonmage blanched when he saw the alien corpse.

Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time; deputy leader

Kara Zor-El sat atop a console in Brainiac 5’s multi-lab, her legs dangling idly. She pulled a Winathian Crimsonberry Candy from her mouth with an audible pop and watched closely as a seemingly oblivious Brainiac 5 adjusted slide controls on a hardlight panel of his own design. “How is she, Brainy? Have you been able to stabilise her?”

“The Heavensent may be dangerously deluded, but I must admit that Red Giant at least is no slouch when it comes to genetic sequencing. The work he's done here is exemplary, and it’s a testament to his genius that this subject has survived till now.” The Legion’s Coluan leader turned from his own work to look over the Mercurian woman the Heavensent had constructed. Though her sens-tank on Mercury had been irreparably damaged, she had been developed specifically to thrive in extremes of temperature and the utter lack of atmosphere on the tiny planet. These attributes had kept her alive long enough for Brainiac to get her back to the more advanced resources of his own lab on Mars, and ensure that she’d have the best chance of surviving. The comatose woman wore a plain black bodysuit now, partially for modesty but more importantly so that her vital signs could be more easily monitored thanks to the sensors integrated into the fabric.

To the right of the tube, Fire Lad stood rigidly. At his side, Polar Boy exchanged the occasional concerned glance with Color Kid and Chlorophyll Kid seated nearby. Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy rounded out the group, the pair standing by Supergirl on the left side of the tube. “You make her ssound like sshe’s a ssciencce exxperiment,” Fire Lad hissed.

“Brainy doesn’t mean anything by it,” Phantom Girl soothed.

“Yeah,” Ultra Boy smirked. “He just gets turned up playing mad scientist, isn’t that right pal?”

Supergirl laughed out loud. “That’s turned on, you ultra-dork.” She turned playfully back to Brainiac 5. “Is that the truth, Professor Dox? Do you get turned on wearing that white lab coat?”

Brainiac 5 cleared his throat, refusing to face the maid of might. “Honestly, I don’t know why I allow — allow —“ He staggered and brought one hand to his forehead before his eyes rolled back in his head and Querl Dox fainted dead away.

“Brainy!!” Before he even reached the floor, Supergirl had leaped to his side and caught the unconscious man.

Chlorophyll Kid stood up and approached gingerly. “I-is h-h-he—“

“Kara, can you see anything out of the ordinary?” Ultra Boy asked.

“No!” She looked Brainiac 5 up and down desperately. He was taking short sharp shallow breaths and his core temperature had risen drastically, but whatever was causing this was not something Kara could punch. Supergirl gave Jo Nah an imploring look, her bright blue eyes wide with fear. “Ultra Boy, he’s going to be okay…right?”

Phantom Girl placed a comforting hand on Supergirl’s shoulder and wiped a stray lock of Brainiac’s hair away from his face. “Everything will be fine, Kara. I promise.”

“This is a little outside my skill set,” Ultra Boy breathed out. “Color Kid, could you do me a favour and get Dream Girl or Mon-El here? We’ll try and make Brainy comfortable in the meantime.”

“Of course.” Color Kid left the room to call Dream Girl in private, but before he did so he caught Polar Boy’s eye. While everybody else in the room was overtly worried about their stricken leader, Ulu and Brek noticed that Fire Lad alone kept glancing from Brainiac 5 to the nameless Mercurian woman and back.

Color Kid and Polar Boy couldn’t help but wonder darkly where this was going to lead.

**********

MARS

Legion of Superheroes Headquarters, Combat training room A

ROLL CALL

Dream Girl aka Nura Nal: Naltorian precognition

Kid Computo aka Danielle Foccart: cyberempathy

Danielle Foccart lay back on the padded mat, winded. She was exhausted and hurting, and she praised the technologically advanced age in which she lived that at least she had a rejuvenation bath to look forward to when this punishment was done so she could soothe her bumps and bruises.

“Come on.” Nura Nal stood over her and offered her hand. “We’re not finished yet. Believe me, I know how frustrating martial arts training can be when it consists primarily of being put on your backside. Just consider yourself lucky you were never on the team when Val or Myg were our combat trainers, even precognition was never much defence against a Karate Kid.”

“This is stupid,” Kid Computo huffed. She ignored Dream Girl’s hand and forced herself to stand under her own power; Danielle resolved to retain at least that small dignity. “I’ve got my power, why do I even need to know how to block a punch? Martial arts training didn’t do those Karate Kids a lot of good, did it??”

Slack-jawed, Dream Girl took a step back. “…Wow. Really, Danielle?”

Danielle Foccart felt an uncomfortable rush of blood to her head. “Oh grife, I’m so sorry…that was so insensitive of me, I don’t know how that even came out.”

“It’s alright,” Dream Girl sighed. She folded her arms across her ample bosom and looked down at the ground. “Val was my friend. Not a lot of people would have ever called Myg a friend exactly, but he did save my life more than once. I understand they're ancient history for you new kids, but just be glad Timber Wolf didn’t hear you make that remark. Still, maybe that’s enough practice for one day. I’ll see if Shadow Lass or Shrinking Violet are able to pick up where we left off after you’ve had a day to recover.”

Kid Computo rushed to Dream Girl’s side as the statuesque blonde walked toward the exit. “Dream Girl, I really am sorry…that was a horrible thing to say, I’m just tired and sore and I wish my feet were bigger so that when I put one in my mouth it would at least stop any more stupid words from coming out!“

“Danielle, stop.” Dream Girl faced the younger girl with a forgiving smile. “I do understand your frustration, truly. You should have heard some of the remarkably inventive curses I discovered when I began my training with Val. That was — that — “ She wavered on her chrome heels and collapsed to the floor.

Danielle had seen this before, but it still unnerved her. She wondered how long she’d need to be a Legionnaire before she’d grow accustomed to Nura Nal passing out when a flash from the future decided to hit her.

After a couple more seconds, Danielle began to wonder if she was right this time to be unnerved. “Dream Girl..?” she asked nervously. The pale-skinned woman was completely unresponsive, so Danielle crouched down and shook her. Nothing. Danielle’s cyberempathy picked up a transmission coming through to Dream Girl’s flight ring so she rerouted it to her own. “Color Kid,” she spoke first, “I think Dream Girl’s unwell...or it could be a psychic attack. Brainiac 5’s flight ring is close by you, I’m opening up this channel to—“

“Don’t bother,” Color Kid said glumly. “Instead, you’d better turn your attention to finding someone who can help them both.”

Ayla Ranzz led the quartet of heroes in their descent through the chilly Balkan moonlight to land on the rubbish-strewn street outside the Last Stout Bar. “Dawny, I know this is a pointless question,” Ayla asked through a disgusted grimace, “But are you absolutely sure that bear woman is here?”

“Unfortunately so,” the winged Legionnaire replied with equal disdain for their grimy surroundings. “While my tracking power is generally much more efficient in the void of deep space, Star-Bear has a rather unique signature. I doubt she’d be able to hide anywhere from me.”

Light Lad watched a Science Police droid across the road taking a couple of raucous drunks into custody. “I see this place hasn’t become any more classy since the last time I was here.”

Lightning Lass guffawed. “You’ve been to this dump, Darvan? Grife, you’re just full of surprises!”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Elastic Lad chimed in as he elongated his torso to cover the bar’s large front facing window, “But gosh, I think we’re about to have some excitement!” Before the other three could respond, a blue-skinned man came hurtling through the window. Elastic Lad’s body protected everyone from the broken glass and also gave the unwilling makeshift projectile a safe landing. Inside the venue, a full bar fight had erupted with an eight foot tall bear in its centre. In case there remained any lingering doubts at all that she was their target, the bear seemed composed of a living starscape and her eyes were two incandescent orbs.

“Darvan, can you break that up before someone gets killed?” Ayla asked. “Dawny, get everyone else out of there would you? I want to have some words with this Star-Bear…those words mainly being zap and boom if you get my drift.” She held up hands crackling with electricity to accentuate her point.

Light Lad stood before the broken window and extended his arms. “Your wish is my command, pretty lady.” Gravity was suspended throughout the tiny bar, and staff and patrons alike rose into the air where they hovered confused.

Dawnstar’s lips turned down in a revolted scowl. She knew why Lightning Lass had asked her to carry out this task, nobody else could come anywhere near matching her speed. Darting in and out of that nauseating floating field of alcohol and food scraps was not going to be pleasant though and she knew she’d be a mess by the time she was finished. She sighed and reminded herself that nobody had ever promised a Legionnaire’s life would be glamorous. Several trips and scant seconds later, a couple dozen very dazed would-be brawlers found themselves unceremoniously deposited on the other side of the street where more Science Police droids awaited them.

Star-Bear had found herself as affected by Light Lad’s power as everyone else in the room, but unlike everyone else she could grow an extra couple of feet in height and brace herself between the floor and the ceiling. She bellowed a roar so loud that the remaining shards of glass still attached to the windowframe rattled and fell.

“I don’t understand you people,” Lightning Lass addressed the enormous cosmic creature, “We took your stupid Judgement League apart and gave you the opportunity for a fresh start wherever you wanted…and what do you do? Go straight back to terrorising innocent sentients across this continent. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to help the Science Police round up a bunch of bullies as I am right now.” Both arms glowing pink with electrical energy, Lightning Lass unleashed that power in a mighty bolt straight at the Star-Bear. For her part, the Russian she-bear roared in defiance and seemed completely unfazed. In fact, she almost seemed to relish the lightning arcing across her form.

Elastic Lad’s neck stretched so that he could peer over Ayla’s shoulder from where the rest of him was directing stragglers away from the fight scene several metres away. “I probably should have said something sooner, but gee whiz that was a really swell speech Lightning Lass! You’re really great at standing up to villains, if you don’t mind me saying so it’s actually very inspiring! I’m really happy to have had the chance to work with you today, you’re—“

“Elastic Lad!” Lightning Lass shouted. “Kind of in the middle of something here!!” She amped up her power and blasted Star-Bear again.

“Oh, right! Gosh, sorry!” He retracted his head for an instant before it reappeared once more right next to Lightning Lass’s own face. “Just wanted to let you know, I read the Science Police files on all of the Judgement League and they weren’t terribly comprehensive for a lot of their members, especially Star-Bear in particular which I guess makes sense as she seems to have come from several centuries in our past and it seems like Earth-Man went to a lot of gosh-darn effort to recruit people to his team who hadn’t really made a lot of impact in the history holos, which again I guess totally makes sense as he wouldn’t want to have disrupted the timeline - I mean he’s evil, but he’s not suicidal, and—“

Ayla threw two more blasts at Star-Bear while Elastic Lad was rambling, but she couldn’t take any more. Infuriated, she turned on him. “Elastic Lad! If you have a point, get to it!! I’m trying to take this stupid space bear out and nothing I’m doing has the slightest effect!”

“Look out!!” Dawnstar slammed into Lightning Lass hard enough to knock the wind out of her and zoomed along the street with her, the snow on the ground kicking up in her wake. Star-Bear’s powerful leg muscles had kicked off the nearest surface and launched her like a cannonball straight into the ground where Ayla had been standing half a second ago. Elastic Lad’s neck quickly retracted to a safe distance from the giant cosmic bear as Star-Bear turned on her haunches with her fangs and claws exposed to deliver a powerfully threatening bellow at the heroes.

“Elastic Lad!” Lightning Lass called out. “Yes or no, can she fly??”

“No,” Jams-Ols 5 responded, and paused before continuing. “But she does have a host of super interesting—“

“Good enough for me!” Ayla cut him off. “Darvan?”

The ursine villain was already finding she needed to dig her powerful toes into the ground to fight Light Lad’s power; once he amplified it to actively hurl her several stories into the air she could do nothing more than flail in powerless rage. She expanded her size once more, using the energy she’d absorbed from Ayla’s assault to fuel her growth. This too proved futile, and in the end she had to admit defeat and shift back to the much more manageable human form of Ursula Yenova. “You Legionnaires are no fun!” the stocky woman hollered down at the heroes. “Can a lady not have a little ruckus in your future?!?

Lightning Lass cocked a thumb at the villain. “Can you believe her?” Ayla chuckled. “Where does she think she is, Rimbor?”

Light Lad laughed at Ayla’s remark, though as soon as he looked at her his smile faded. “Ayla, Dawnstar! Look!” Unwilling to release Ursula, he gestured with one hand.

Just past Lightning Lass, Elastic Lad’s elongated form lay limp and silent in the dirty snow.

Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: deputy leader; ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

“Where’s Brainy?!” Garth Ranzz’s voice rang out in the large laboratory. “I need Brainy!!” Phantom Girl could hear the panic in his voice, and rushed to meet him as he came bursting into the lab with an unconscious Saturn Girl in his arms. Gravity Kid, Variable Lad and Laurel Kent were at their teachers’ side.

“Garth, please try to calm down.” Phantom Girl stood before him and tried to slow his pace. “Imra’s not the only—“

“Hey!” Supergirl appeared by Phantom Girl’s side, hovering so that she was a couple of inches taller than the Legion founder. “What Phantom Girl’s trying to tell you is that Brainy’s in the same position as Saturn Girl is. And they’re not the only ones, take a look around you Lightning Lad!”

Lightning Lad’s face was contorted with rage, but it softened as he saw that Brainiac 5, Dream Girl and Sun Boy were in individual beds being monitored by medical equipment. All of them were in deep sleep. “What…what happened?” Garth asked more quietly.

“We don’t know,” Supergirl returned to the ground. “But we’re trying to find out. It’s not just here. Lightning Lass is bringing Elastic Lad back now, he’s been affected by…whatever this is as well.”

“It’s not just the Legion of Superheroes either,” Ultra Boy approached and stood by Phantom Girl’s side. “Bouncing Boy tells me half the Time Institute are out of it, and Medicus One has been inundated with new patients. I don’t know what they’re supposed to do about it though, I mean something that works this quickly across half a solar system can’t be a disease…can it?”

“I don’t know, Jo.” Phantom Girl squeezed his hand. “Infectious Lass should be able to rule it out for sure, she’s on her way back to base now. I asked Kid Computo to help Gas Girl find out how far this has spread as well.”

“Thanks babe.” Ultra Boy kissed her on top of the head. “Come on Garth, let’s make sure Imra’s as comfortable as possible.”

**********

MARS

Legion of Superheroes Headquarters, Mission Monitor Room

ROLL CALL

Gas Girl aka Tal Nahii: can transform into any gas

Kid Computo aka Danielle Foccart: cyberempathy

“I don’t know if I should be glad or depressed that Brainy repaired this place so quickly after the Teallians attacked,” Kid Computo slumped in her seat. “It’s good that we’ve got access to our monitor room again, but none of this news is what I want to hear. It seems like every planet and outpost in the UP is suffering, there’s gonna be chaos if we don’t find an answer to this soon.”

“Tell me about it!” Gas Girl agreed emphatically. “I was on monitor duty when this all started anyway…with this happening so soon after the Teallian invasion, the Science Police have already had to respond to outbreaks of violence in some areas. I’m just calling Lallor now to see if — oh, Evolvo Lad! Hi!”

The visage of an absolutely ordinary looking man with mousy brown hair appeared before the two heroines. “Hello Gas Girl, I can see you’ve not used your personal channel to call so I suppose this must be Legion business?”

“You’re right,” Gas Girl smiled, “As usual. Actually, it might be your more evolved self whose help we need. Can you evolve for us?”

“I know,” Gas Girl interjected. “That’s why we need your hyperbrain. It’s affected all of our best intellects, we need someone smart enough to be able to help figure out what’s going on.”

“Tal, you’re not understanding.” Evolvo Lad shook his head. “I can’t evolve because then I’d fall victim to the same affliction. It’s not a coincidence that the smartest minds of the Legion have been affected…

Standing outside the building which housed the most famous team of heroes in the galaxy, Zoe Saugin gave Dragonmage a warm embrace. “Thanks for all your help,” she smiled sadly. “I still think there’s more to this mess with Qward than we’ve seen, but since we sent the surviving Thunderers back to their home dimension I guess we’re kinda stuck on getting any more answers.”

“I do wish you’d stay,” Xao Jin replied. “You’d be an absolute asset to the Legion, and even if you’re not interested in joining you’ll be safer here with us if the Qwardians do come after you again.”

Zoe stepped back and chuckled wryly. “I can look after myself, Xao. Anyway, between Dawnstar, Supergirl, Mon-El and probably half a dozen other people on your team if I do need help you’re not that far away. I need to find Sodam Yat though, and I need to tell the friends and families of the other Green Lanterns what happened to them. Once I’ve fulfilled my responsibilities as the last Green Lantern, who knows? I’ve got all this power now, I need to do something positive with it so I might just come back.”

“It’s your decision of course,” Xao answered diplomatically. “But I will miss you, Zoe. It’s a shame we only ever get to see one another in the middle of a crisis.”

“That part I agree with,” Zoe nodded. “I promise I’ll come visit again as soon as I can. Thanks again!” She allowed the emerald energy which now permeated her to manifest itself as an aura of light, and Dragonmage watched as his childhood friend flew off into the Martian skies.

**********

MERCURY

On board a cruiser in planetary orbit

ROLL CALL

Brainiac 5 aka Querl Dox: 12th level intelligence, team leader

Color Kid aka Ulu Vakk: color manipulation

Fire Lad aka Staq Mavlen: fire-breathing

Mon-El aka Lar Gand: Daxamite physiology

Polar Boy aka Brek Bannin: cold and ice generation

Shadow Lass aka Tasmia Mallor: darkness generation

Star Boy aka Thom Kallor: celestial mass-transference

“It’s definitely them.”

Mon-El had been staring intently through the floor of the Legion’s cruiser for the last few seconds, but he turned now to face the rest of his teammates in a Legion cruiser which had travelled over 160 million miles. A United Planets automated research station had gone offline after recording a massive energy surge, so the UP had asked the Legion of Superheroes to investigate. Thanks to Mon-El’s range of vision powers, the Legion now knew that the Heavensent were responsible for this vandalism. The Legion had previously encountered the temporally displaced villains as part of the much larger Judgement League, but the Heavensent had left that group before the Legion’s final encounter with the League.

Brainiac 5 was confident that they could defeat the Heavensent in the very likely circumstance that it came to a fight, but it would be much easier if they’d brought more heavy hitters. His computer mind almost instantly calculated the probable delay in calling reinforcements and dismissed it as being an unviable option. With their powers and abilities, the Heavensent might know the Legion were here before too long; best for the heroes to strike now while they still had the element of surprise. “This outpost holds no sentient staff,” Brainiac 5 mused out loud. “There’s no tactical advantage to taking it over…can you see anything which may help to explain why the Heavensent are there, Mon-El?”

“Actually, yes.” The square-jawed Daxamite frowned as he trained his uncanny eyesight on the small planet once more. “It looks like they’ve rigged up a sens-tank and there’s someone inside. The entire team is present and accounted for though and I don’t recognise who they have in there.”

“Intriguing,” Brainiac 5 replied. “I recommend we find out. Shadow Lass, if you’d be so kind as to provide us with some cover let’s pay our Mercurian squatters a visit.”

The Legionnaires left their vessel, a disc of utter blackness masking them before the star-filled sky. Their transuits kept them safe from the deathly cold here on Mercury’s dark side, and their flight rings carried them to the tiny planet’s surface in little time. The facility they were looking for was small, far smaller than the Legion’s headquarters. It was also one of very few structures on Mercury, and the Legion found it easily in the deep crater which kept it out of sunlight during this little world’s insanely hot daytime temperatures. Brainiac 5 didn’t share Shadow Lass’s perfect vision in darkness or any of Mon-El’s sensory capabilities, so he was forced to monitor their progress using mapping software on his omnicom. Once the group of heroes were in position, Brainiac asked Shadow Lass to drop her darkness field. “The outer structure displays irregular density directly below us,” the Coluan announced, his green face glowing in the light of his handheld device. “I believe the Heavensent made their entrance here and have carried out temporary repairs to protect the facility’s integrity. Mon-El, if you could assist us in following their path?”

“Happy to help, Brainy.” The Daxamite gripped a thick plate of metal and easily bent it back, providing a makeshift doorway which the other Legionnaires took advantage of. He repaired the damage as soon as everybody was safely through, using heat vision to weld the tear back into place.

“Thank you,” Brainiac replied. “Now we should—“ He was interrupted by a loud grunt of pain, and the Heavensent’s hyper-speedster Tachyon came into view as he bounced off of Brainiac 5’s forcefield. He’d been moving too fast for the Legionnaires to see when he’d charged towards them, but they all clearly saw now that he was about to be smeared across the floor.

“I’ve got him!” Mon-El was a blur of motion as he raced to catch the white-garbed villain. “I may not be in your league when it comes to speed,” Mon-El teased the villain as he protected him from impact and gripped him tight, “But I’m a little stronger than you, Tachyon. You’re not going anywhere.”

Before Mon-El had even finished speaking, Tachyon was nothing more than a fading after-image in his arms. The villain had already decked Color Kid and Polar Boy in the time it took for Mon-El to realise he’d escaped, and Tachyon stood now in the doorway to the room the Legion had invaded. “Not in my league?” Tachyon grinned wickedly. “We’re not even playing the same sport. I can break the time barrier, you second-rate Superman…only a couple of seconds, but that’s all I need to walk all over you chumpers.”

Tachyon’s world suddenly turned pitch black. “I’m guessing chumper is some kind of regional slang from whatever backwater era Earth-Man recruited you from,” Shadow Lass retorted coolly. “I’m also guessing that like you, it’s not very pleasant. In case you’re not intelligent enough to work this out for yourself, I wouldn’t attempt any of your speed tricks while you can’t see where you’re going. The results wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Works both ways,” his voice rang out from within an 8 foot radius of pure darkness. "The second you come in here and throw a punch or a kick, that’s the same second you find yourself with some broken bones.”

“We don’t have to go in there,” Star Boy rolled his eyes. “Idiot.” He raised one white-gloved arm and the air turned dark around his hand. Thom Kallor’s power couldn’t be seen within the impenetrable darkness it targetted but all of the Legionnaires heard the buckling of the floor, the wrenching scream of metallic consoles suddenly too heavy to stand, and the painful thud of Tachyon slamming straight into the ground. Shadow Lass allowed the darkness to dissipate, and the heroes saw Tachyon out cold on the damaged floor.

“Good work, you two.” Brainiac 5 turned to Fire Lad, who’d gone to help his two former colleagues in the Legion of Substitute Heroes. “How are Polar Boy and Color Kid?” Brainy asked.

“We’re probably both concussed,” Polar Boy moaned, leaning on Fire Lad’s arm to stand. “I’ll shoot a cold spike through us to keep us from getting too dopey for now, but we’re going to need the sickbay when we get back to the ship.”

“You’ll be heading back to the ship now,” Brainiac 5 stated without emotion. “I’m not taking injured Legionnaires into battle. You’re a potential liability and your health is more important than any villain’s plot.”

“Eminently reasonable,” a woman’s voice sounded out. “I’m afraid you’ve removed that option from the equation by breaking into our facility though, Legionnaires. You’ll all have to die now of course.” The golden-skinned woman Celestine hovered before them, a flaming corona where her hair should be. The flames continued down the length of her arms, ending at a point just beyond her wrist. Behind Celestine, Red Giant and White Dwarf were poised for battle. The first man stood 12 feet tall, very nearly scraping against the ceiling. The second of the duo didn’t even reach 4 feet in height. Completing the group, the mute creature known only as Void emerged through an internal wall, leaving a hole in his wake shaped like his own silhouette.

“I don’t like to manhandle a lady, but you’re not much of a lady.” Mon-El charged at Celestine before she could mount an attack and barrelled straight through the floor with her, driving the golden powerhouse deep beneath Mercury’s surface.

“Star Boy, stay close by.” Brainiac 5 dropped the forcefield which had been surrounding him since his descent to Mercury and projected it again, this time around Void. “If this doesn’t work, I may need your assistance.”

“You think he can get through your forcefield, Brainy?” Even as Star Boy spoke the words, Void silently passed through the field and advanced toward the Legionnaires.

“Maybe my darkness can contain him?” Shadow Lass enveloped Void in her own power, but the darkness simply ceased to exist as soon as it breached his event horizon.

“No, I’m afraid Star Boy is the only Legionnaire present who can affect our foe.” Brainiac sounded utterly calm, though Void was mere feet away from him in this confined space.

“What can I do?” Thom shrugged, backing away slowly from the unstoppable force before them. “I don’t even think he has mass, Brainy!”

“Nine thou—!” Thom began to protest, but thought better of it. His ability to transfer mass from stars into any given target was not so refined that he could guarantee the result his leader had requested, but he knew that Brainiac wouldn’t ask for such a specific result unless it were necessary. He resolved to do his best. With both arms stretched out before him, Star Boy trembled with the effort. The familiar dark nimbus of his power surrounded his arms and filled the silhouette of Void’s form. At first the mute creature gave no sign that he was even aware anything was happening, but as his mass increased further and further he began to falter. He doubled over as if in pain, and then with a small pop of displaced air he was gone. “What happened?” The overtaxed Star Boy collapsed to his knees. “Brainy, tell me I didn’t kill him!”

“I do not believe Void is capable of dying in any sense that we recognise the term,” Brainiac answered. “You simply destabilised his form temporarily by exceeding the threshold of mass he’s capable of safely annexing. Now, let us find out if our friends need assistance with their own enemies.”

White Dwarf covered his face with his forearm against Fire Lad’s flame breath. The villain's power was to increase his density as he shrunk down, and at his current three foot stature he was basically fireproof. The heat and light were a nuisance nonetheless. “We both know this is just a delaying tactic,” the former scientist announced. “You’re going to find it difficult to breathe fire once I crush your larynx, Legionnaire.” The barrage of flames ceased, and White Dwarf lowered his arm. “What the..?”

The ceiling had vanished, and in its place was a blanket of stars. Somehow the Legionnaires had removed the building’s roof altogether, but that made no sense. Explosive decompression should have sent all of them hurtling into space and an almost instant death! Before he could question the odd sight any further, Red Giant toppled down painfully on top of the diminutive White Dwarf. Helplessly entwined, both men were covered in a foot of ice to match the solid block of ice around Red Giant’s feet which had caused him to tumble down in the first place.

“That should keep them both under control for a while,” Polar Boy advised Fire Lad and Color Kid. “Super-strength doesn’t mean much if you don’t have the leverage to use it.”

Color Kid nodded, his throbbing jaw too sore for him to even attempt to talk. The ground beneath their feet suddenly shook violently, and they all looked down at the debris Mon-El and Celestine had left behind them. Right on cue, Mon-El tunnelled up through the ground to rejoin his team. His costume was in tatters and he looked worse for wear, but unlike his passenger Celestine he was still conscious. “She’s no pushover, but neither am I.” Mon-El dumped her unceremoniously on top of the struggling Red Giant. “Now…should we see what it is exactly they were doing here?”

“Absolutely,” Brainiac 5 took control. “Legionnaires, I’ve accessed their files and I believe I have a very unpleasant idea why the Heavensent have come to this place. I’d like to see their subject in person before I elaborate on my suspicions however.”

The Legionnaires made their way through the tiny building to the sense-tank which the Heavensent had constructed. Within they saw a humanoid female floating, oblivious to anything going on around her. The woman’s naked skin was coarse, etched with lines. She was disturbingly gaunt, and completely hairless. Her nose was almost non-existent, just a small raised ridge with two thin nostrils. Polar Boy looked from the woman in the tube to Fire Lad and back again. “Staq, she…she looks like you!”

Mon-El looked her up and down, then trained his enhanced senses on Fire Lad. “Genetically, you’re very similar. Why would the Heavensent have some poor Shwarian woman in a sens-tank though?”

“She’s not Shwarian,” Brainiac 5 answered. “In truth, she’s not a member of any race. The Heavensent have created her as a prototype colonist for this planet.”

“She’s bio-engineered?” Shadow Lass hugged Mon-El. “Why would the Heavensent want to create someone capable of living on an otherwise uninhabitable planet?”

“According to the files I’ve found,” Brainiac explained, “The Heavensent consider their powers to be some kind of divine gift. It seems that they’ve created this woman to worship them, and they plan on creating an entire artificial population just like her. She has an uncanny resistance to temperature extremes, along with other adaptations which would support her survival in Mercury’s hostile environment. If they’re allowed to continue, they’ll produce an entire army of loyal followers specifically grown for this environment.”

“Why do I feel thiss…connection with her though?” Fire Lad asked, staring up at the naked woman in awe. “Why are we sso ssimilar if sshe’ss an artificial lifeform?”

Before anybody could answer, an explosion rocked the building. The gravity generators failed, and the Legionnaires were sent hurtling into the vacuum of space along with the debris of the research facility they’d been standing in. Mon-El was fast enough to protect Shadow Lass with his invulnerable form and Brainiac 5’s forcefield shielded everyone else, but not before the tremendous force of the explosion knocked out Star Boy and Polar Boy.

Mon-El trained his telescopic vision on the escaping Heavensent. “White Dwarf is much smaller,” he reported. “He must have shrunk down to increase his strength and maneuverability, escaped Polar Boy’s ice trap and helped Celestine recover so they could make their escape. Do you want me to take pursuit, Brainy?”

“Let them go,” Brainiac 5 said. “Almost half of our team require medical attention; even without Void on their side, we’re not in a position to engage the Heavensent at the moment. Celestine’s dramatic exit destroyed the facility they’d taken over, but I downloaded more data which I can review on the way back to Mars to shed some more light on what it is exactly that they’ve done here today.”

Fire Lad flew to the side of the nameless woman in the sens-tank. In the explosion her tank had been ruptured and its liquid nutrient solution had frozen solid even as it had flowed into Mercury’s practically non-existent atmosphere. Staq Mavlen's heart was in his throat, though he couldn’t explain why. “What about her?” he asked hesitantly.

...If there is a way to help her though, I promise you that we’ll find it.”

**********

KIRINYAGA

Pauvitz Point, Portela Mountain Ranges

The self-christened Mwindaji handed his newfound patient a thermos full of water from Fraukinyagen River half a klik west. The bald white man with the pointed ears took it gratefully. “Thank you for everything,” the man named Vidar spoke gratefully as he sipped the fresh water. “Honestly, now that I’ve recovered my wits, my rings can restore me to full health but I do appreciate the lengths you’ve gone to in order to help a complete stranger.”

“You are most welcome,” Mwindaji bowed his head respectfully. In truth, it had only taken him half an hour to erect a makeshift shelter from branches and sheetbark. Mwindaji had thought he’d have to call on outside help for this stranger who’d fallen from the sky, but the man had gotten his spirits back surprisingly swiftly. “These rings you wear…is this how you survived your fall from the heavens?”

“I am afraid not,” the dark-skinned teenager shook his head. “Here on Kirinyaga, we are not privy to the common workings of the worlds of the United Planets.”

“The Green Lantern Corps are a kind of intergalactic police force,” Vidar indulged him. “They haven’t much of a presence these days, but once upon a time they were a powerful force for good in the universe.” He held up his hand and the yellow ring he was wearing now glowed. “The Sinestro Corps were their brothers in arms, their rings were golden rather than green. These rings are weapons of the highest order, though it has been a long time since they were wielded for good. It was an enemy of the corps who laid me low, and sentenced me to what he thought would be my death. These rings saved my life…if I had their brothers, they might have been able to do more than simply offer a measure of protection.”

“There are more like this?” Mwindaji asked. “Rings whose power can protect you from terminal impact, restore your health at a faster rate?”

“There are seven corps in total,” the older man explained. “Individually they are powerful, together they would give me the power of a god. I plan to find them all and heal this universe’s woes.”

Mwindaji was stunned. To have met such a man on his Initiation Trek…surely this was a sign, a portent for him to follow. “Vidar…” he spoke cautiously in his stunted Interlac. “I am a tracker…I am perhaps the finest tracker of any I know. If these rings you need to find, I can help you achieve this.”

Vidar paused in sipping the water he’d been given. He’d been cast out of Qward, his allies turned against him. He was surprised to still be alive. If not for the green and gold rings he wore, he had no doubt he’d right now be plummeting to his eternal doom in Q’Uld’s bottomless Void. The rings had seen fit though not only to keep him alive, not only to transport him from Qwardian space to his home dimension, but to dump him unceremoniously with this naive stranger who might have the ability to help him find every other ring he needed to complete his goal. This was more than luck, this was destiny. He opened his mouth to answer Mwindaji, but he suddenly found it supremely difficult to form words or even the concept of words. His mind raced with a rush of input unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

So it was that Vidar, the man known to others as Universo, emitted a spastic monosyllable and collapsed drooling and insensate before his newfound saviour.

ROLL CALLChlorophyll Kid aka Ral Benem: hyper-stimulated plant growthComet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generationAs Comet Queen approached the expansive floating gardens of Elysium Fields, it occurred to her she’d never been here before. The gardens stretched for a couple of miles, held aloft above ancient Martian lava flows by modern gravitic technologies. The artificial forest was an oasis of green on the red planet, and while Grava preferred the star-dotted vastness of outer space she had to admit that the gardens were pretty in their own way. She hadn’t come to look at trees today though. She flew low over the verdant canopy, attracting stares from tourists below and causing children to whoop in excitement as they recognised the golden girl streaking overhead. This is space-crazy, Grava chastised herself. I’m never gonna scope him here if he’s not in his costume, I’ll have to call him. Just as she was about to speak into her flight ring, a tousled head of blond hair caught her attention by a bed of siren cylinders. Grava circled her unwitting target a couple of times until she was sure it was him and then landed a few feet away.

While families and nature-lovers in the area gasped and took out their recording devices, Ral Benem remained completely oblivious to Grava’s arrival. Dressed very casually, he was fascinated by the long pinkish colored flowers before him. As their name would suggest, the siren cylinders were a group of brightly hued hollow tubes rising from a dense bush of rough-edged leaves. They whistled at various pitches, a subsonic component attracting nearby insects to enter their deadly embrace. Once the insects made their way inside the cylindrical flowers, a sticky excretion sealed their fate. Ral heard a familiar voice call out “Starshine!” and he tilted his head in mild surprise.

“Grava?” he turned to face his teammate. “You’re in costume, d-does the Legion need me?”

“I just wanted to say thanks,” she smiled shyly, digging at the dirt nervously with one oversized toe. “Quislet’s my pal, and when he needed help you were the only one who listened to me. I know I’m not in the same orbit as everyone else. I’m not used to anyone listening to me, even my friends don’t listen to me most of the time. I’m nova bright that you did, and now the shiny little shuttle and Tellus and Wildfire are talking to the United Planets about bringing Teall into their gravitational pull, and it’s all thanks to you! So I just wanted to say thanks!” She ran up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Oh! And I came to give you this!” Grava brought her left arm from behind her back and revealed a hastily wrapped box in her palm. She’d decorated the wrapping paper herself with childish renditions of trees and flowers.

“Open it!” she squealed, clapping her hands and jumping up and down on the spot. “Open it, open it!”

Ral laughed. “Okay, okay, give me a nano.” He tore at the paper and removed the lid from the small box, unsure of what he could expect. With Comet Queen, it could be anything. “G-grava! Oh wow Grava, it’s b-beautiful!” He removed from the box a small multi-faceted flower made from black stone which gleamed in the sunlight. “T-this must have c-cost you a fortune, it-it’s flawless!” Stunned, he held the quartz flower closer to his face and turned it around so he could examine every surface.

“Do you love it?” Grava clutched her hands before her face. “Do you love it? Starshine, tell me you love it! It’s a crystal rose, from Qual III! It’s not a real rose of course, I mean duh, but the crystal grows like that ‘cause of…reasons. I dunno, I kind of went nebula hazy when my auto-teacher beamed that part.”

“It’s really beautiful Grava, truly. And very thoughtful. I do love it, thank you.” Ral gave her a warm smile and she giggled nervously.

“Yay! Okay, gotta fly! Enjoy your plants!” She kissed him on the cheek again and was a tiny golden streak in the distance before he could respond. Ral touched his cheek while he watched her disappear into the endless blue skies. She certainly was a strange girl…

Staq Mavlen and Brek Bannin left one of their base’s well-equipped cafeterias with full bellies. Staq belched and a harmless mini-fireball exploded forth from his open mouth before quickly dissipating. “Ssorry.” The skinny hero called Fire Lad covered his mouth. “Better out than in, right?”

Brek pushed his old comrade playfully. “You’re disgusting! How many years have we known each other and you still haven’t learned basic manners?”

“I’m from Sshwar,” came Fire Lad’s self-depreciating retort. “You’re lucky I’ve learned to usse cutlery, buddy.” Fire Lad was glad that their friendship had reached a stage where they could joke like this. Even when Polar Boy had led the Legion of Substitute Heroes he’d always maintained some emotional distance from the rest of his team. While Fire Lad, Night Girl, Stone Boy and Chlorophyll Kid really embraced their friendships with one another and Color Kid had easily fallen into that circle when he joined the team, Brek had always seemed to hold himself a little apart. They all knew that he valued their camaraderie, but he could never seem to show it. Brek had been the youngest of them, maybe he thought he needed to maintain his exterior at all times to maintain their respect? Maybe he’d been so focused on joining the Legion of Superheroes the whole time that everything else came second? Staq honestly didn’t know, but ever since Fire Lad and Color Kid had called Polar Boy out on his poor behaviour he really had made efforts to change. In a lot of ways Fire Lad felt like Polar Boy was opening up to them more now than he had in the entire time they’d known him.

“Fire Lad!”

The sound of his codename shook Staq from his reverie. Fire Lad and Polar Boy looked to see Light Lad running down the corridor toward them. “I’m glad I found you,” the lanky Winathian smiled as he made his way past Shrinking Violet walking in the opposite direction. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to bring up!”

“Ssure, what iss it?” Staq asked. He and Light Lad were almost the same height but though Darvan might be lean, Staq was practically a skeleton in comparison. Beside them both, the much shorter Polar Boy watched the conversation curiously.

“It’s your readings,” Darvan explained. He presented the omnicom for Fire Lad’s perusal. “Your bio-readings, I mean. Remember how we were all a little worse for wear after we fled Larfleezia? I checked all of our readings from our shuttle’s sickbay, you know, just to be sure there were no internal injuries or anything that it hadn’t picked up. Yours are…well, they’re a little weird. I mean I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, there’s certainly no sign of obvious damage—“

“Thankss for telling me,” Staq quickly lowered the omnicom without more than a glance. “I’m fine though, like you ssaid there’ss no ssign of damage right?”

“How are his readings weird?” Brek asked abruptly.

“That’s the thing, I’m not really sure to be honest.” Light Lad admitted. “I was an intern at a psychiatric institute before I joined the Legion, genetics isn’t really my strong suit.”

“Whoa, genetics?” Polar Boy’s eyebrows rose. “Staq, I don’t think you should dismiss this so quickly.”

“I ssaid I’m fine,” Fire Lad brushed their concerns aside. “Thankss for going to the effort of finding me to tell me, Light Lad. I appressiate the the thought, but there’ss definitely nothing to worry about.”

“Staq, I’m not so sure.” Polar Boy looked into his friend’s eyes, eyes which had long since lost any visible sign of either pupils or irises. Not for the first time in recent days, Brek found himself wondering about the physiological changes Fire Lad had undergone since their first meeting. The drastic weight loss, his skin becoming more leathery, his hair falling out to be replaced by a crest of flame…and now even his voice had changed, becoming more sibilant to the point where even Legionnaires who’d only known him since he joined the team had observed a difference. These changes had come in so gradually that nobody ever really noticed until he was suddenly a dramatically different person physically than he’d been months ago, and Staq had always assured his friends that it was normal for Shwarians to react strangely when spending large periods of time away from the rarified atmosphere of their homeworld. Now though, it was clear this metamorphosis was more than superficial. “What would it hurt to get checked out?” Brek continued. “At least then we’ll know everything’s okay.”

Doors a couple of feet thick groaned as they retracted into their housings and six Legionnaires watched alongside the last Green Lantern while a large sparse room on the other side was revealed. The Workforce awaited them there, eight metahumans charged with defending the prison planet Takron-Galtos and ensuring its captive population of prisoners remained captive.

“Hello Legionnaires,” a chirpy blond boy greeted the galaxy-famed heroes. “For those of you we haven’t met, I’m Dyrk Magz but you can call me Magno. The rest of my team are Bioluminescent Lass, Gear, Ion, Triplicate Boy, Sizzle, Twine and Abyss. Obviously none of you need introduction. Please, step into the Welcome Mat with us.”

“Wasn’t your name Void last time we met?” Cosmic Boy asked the skinny man called Abyss.

“Takron-Galtos has had a couple new intakes from your old pals in the Judgement League,” Abyss replied sardonically. “Finding out one of their ex-teammates is a walking lobotomy with the same name as me was all the inspiration I needed to change mine."

“The official designation is Inmate Processing Facility 1-D,” Gear explained. “Welcome Mat seems a little catchier, and considering all new prisoners pass through here when they're processed, the name fits.”

“Might I just say,” Magno gushed, “It’s an unbelievable honour getting to meet the legendary Supergirl. I mean working with the Legion of Superheroes is a privilege in itself of course, but you’re…well, legendary!”

“...If you believe it’s really her,” Abyss muttered under his breath. Beside him, Twine’s eyes twinkled as she smiled behind her muzzle. With her super-hearing, Supergirl easily heard the barbed comment but she didn’t react. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard doubts of her legitimacy in the 31st century. While most sentients were awestruck to be in the presence of an almost mythologically famous heroine, there were the occasional few who simply assumed she was a Daxamite playing a role. Kara had long since learned to let it slide.

“I’m glad you guys were okay with us coming here,” Ultra Boy stepped forward and shook Magno’s hand. “We don’t want to step on any toes and we know the SP have already interrogated the Thunderers we took into custody but hopefully we’ll be able to get some more out of them. Granted, most of us are just here for extra muscle but between Cham, Dragonmage and Green Lantern we should have enough detective brains and weird powers to give us a better chance than your average psi-cop.”

“...Oh.” Magno seemed taken aback. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry Ultra Boy. We didn’t realise you were intending to bring the Green Lantern in on the interrogation.”

“Is that a problem?” Cosmic Boy asked.

While Magno stumbled for diplomacy, the Imskian Ion answered more bluntly. “She doesn’t have the clearance.”

“What?” Now it was Zoe who was taken aback. “Those monsters killed my friends! If you think I’m sitting this out while the Legion—“

“I’m sorry, Green Lantern.” Magno’s apology seemed completely genuine. “I really am, I’ve read the reports and I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. But Ion’s right…to be honest, it’s only a goodwill gesture toward the Legion of Superheroes that you’re allowed in the Welcome Mat at all. You’re more than welcome to wait here, you don’t have the security clearance to be allowed any further though.”

“This sucks!” Zoe exploded.

“I’m sorry,” Cosmic Boy apologised again while Ultra Boy looked on slightly annoyed at the imposition on his leadership. “This is really the Workforce’s decision though, we can’t dictate terms here.”

“I’m a sprocking Green Lantern!” Zoe complained. “We’re the cops of the universe for crying out loud!”

“Self-appointed cops,” Abyss clarified with a smirk.

“I’m afraid the regulations are quite explicit on this,” Gear added more soberly.

Zoe’s eyes flared green. “I could charge in there through all of you if that’s what I wanted to do!” She saw the Workforce take on defensive stance, and even some of the Legion joined suit. With a frustrated grunt, she threw her head back and flew straight up. In the brief instant it took her to reach the ceiling, her whole body was surrounded in an emerald aura and she phased harmlessly through it.

“Everyone else go ahead,” Ultra Boy commanded before Cosmic Boy could say anything more. “Dragonmage, you’re her friend. Come with me, we’ll try and calm her down and join the others once we’ve done that.” As he headed toward the external door with Xao, Jo turned around almost as an afterthought. “Cham, you’re in charge till I get back.”

Following Zoe’s green trail wasn’t at all difficult, and soon Ultra Boy and Dragonmage had caught up with her high above the surface of Takron-Galtos. “Zoe!” Dragonmage called out. “Where are you going?”

“This is so stupid!” she spun around and faced the two men. “They know I could flatten the lot of them, right? I could probably tear this dumb planet in half if I wanted! I’m one of the good guys, who are those jerks to tell me I can’t avenge my friends?!”

Ultra Boy wiped loose strands of hair behind his ear. “Yeahhh, no offence kid but when you say stuff like that I can see why they’d have trust issues.”

“Oh come on, of course I’m not gonna actually do anything like that!” she countered. “I’m just venting! Ever since those Thunderer squajes killed my friends I’ve been on the back foot trying to get anywhere with finding out why they attacked! And now this stupid planet’s stupid regulations are getting in my way! After everything I’ve gone through, can’t one thing just be easy??”

“I know it must be incredibly frustrating,” Xao said, “But the Workforce are just doing their job, Zoe. They’re not the enemy here.”

“They’re not the enemy,” Ultra Boy agreed. “But their regulations are stupid.”

Zoe and Xao both stared wide-eyed. “…What..?”

“Well they are,” Jo shrugged. “You’ve gone through enough that you deserve to be down there. And if we can’t get you physically in the room with us, well then…we’ll just have to find a way around it.”

“Wow.” Zoe’s anger had been replaced by surprise. “I did not expect the Legion of Superheroes to help me find a way to break the rules!”

“Most of the Legion of Superheroes weren’t born and bred on Rimbor,” Ultra Boy gave a cheeky smile. “Now one of you is a sorcerer and the other one’s got the most versatile power in the galaxy…I’m pretty sure if we put our heads together we should be able to find a way to make you our silent partner down there.”

**********While the Thunderers had been divested of their extra-dimensional weaponry, they were still dangerous warriors. Accordingly, they were kept isolated from the Workforce and Legion of Superheroes both by virtue of a translucent forcefield.

“I’m surprised you didn’t put them in separate cells,” Sun Boy remarked offhand when he saw the plate-eyed men congregated together in the one large room.

“Originally we did,” Magno replied. “Once we realised we weren’t getting anywhere with them individually we thought they might be more likely to let their guard down if they were allowed to interact normally with one another.”

“It’s a clever strategy,” Chameleon Boy complimented the Braalian teen. “I’m guessing you haven’t had much luck with it though. These men have had extensive military training. You can tell from their body language, the way they are around one another.” Cham stood close to the forcefield, analysing each of the Qwardians intently even as they looked him up and down with open hostility. “I’d also hazard a guess that they came prepared to endure much worse treatment than they’ve received,” Cham continued. “Look at their scars, their lack of fear. If their actions already weren’t enough to convince us, it’s obvious that they’re accustomed to a much more brutal lifestyle than we are.”

“Sounds like you missed your calling,” Ultra Boy’s voice chimed in as one of Triplicate Boy’s bodies accompanied Jo and Dragonmage down the corridor. “Shoulda been a profiler for the SP, Cham.”

While Triplicate Boy’s bodies merged, Jo took position next to Chameleon Boy and Dragonmage slipped quietly into place among the other Legionnaires. “I’ll tell you something else though,” Jo continued. “They’re not scared of us, but they’re scared of something. Look how tense they are, I don’t think it’s loyalty that’s keeping them from blabbing everything.” Ultra Boy rapped a knuckle against the forcefield and it emitted a sharp zapping sound.

“You guys should be scared of us,” Ultra Boy taunted the Qwardians. “Our boy Dragonmage here is a sorcerer and I guarantee you when his magic dragons eat your brains to get the answers we need it’s gonna hurt a lot more than any telepath would.” Simultaneously, and unnoticed by anybody present, Gear stared curiously around the room and extended an intricate antennae array from his forearm.

“Uh, Ultra Boy..?” Dragonmage tried to keep his voice down. “My dragonforms don’t actually hurt necessarily, and uhh…to be honest, I haven’t really summoned a dragonform before which can duplicate a mental probe to that extent…” The Asian hero blushed as he confessed his limitations. Behind him, Gear silently extended his neck a couple of feet straight up. Micro-circuitry became visible beneath flesh-hued epidermal panels, and his eyes shifted color gradually from one end of the visual spectrum to the other.

“Have some faith in yourself, Dragonmage.” Sun Boy gave the slight teen a reassuring pat on the back. “We do.”

“...Magno?” Gear’s voice sounded out uncertainly. “I don’t want to alarm anybody but some very strange energies are accumulating in this area.”

Before anybody else could utter a word, a deafening thunderclap sounded and the room was filled with a blinding light. “Thunderers!” Sizzle warned. She’d reacted fast enough to convert most of the light which reached her into electrical energy, protecting her sight. With a crackling jolt she soon had one of the intruders convulsing. There were a dozen Thunderers in all, and they immediately leaped to attack. While a couple went for the forcefield restraining their compatriots, the others drew their thunderbolts to attack the startled heroes. Protected by their own powers, Supergirl intercepted a couple of the thunderbolts in a blur of motion and Sun Boy incinerated two more before they could reach their targets. Gear and Bioluminescent Lass rushed to protect their own still recovering teammates, and when the artificial lightning struck Gear he squealed raw code and collapsed in a smoking heap.

Bioluminescent Lass stood over Triplicate Boy, her eyes wide with fear as she faced down the much more physically imposing Qwardian who now bore down on them both. The ethereal heroine was clearly terrified, but stood her ground nonetheless. “I won’t let you hurt him,” her voice trembled.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” the Thunderer snarled. He drew a thunderbolt from the quiver on his back and flung it at her, and Bioluminescent Lass pushed her Carggite teammate aside with as much force as she could muster in a futile attempt to protect him. The slender woman was surprised when an emerald wall appeared out of nowhere to protect her from the destructive force of the exploding thunderbolt.

“Too bad I don’t have the clearance to be here,” Zoe Saugin announced smugly from where she’d phased through the ceiling. “Might have been able to save your life.”

“Green Lantern?!” Still seeing stars, Magno ripped metal panelling from the ceiling itself to protect everyone else until they could see clearly again. “Not to seem ungrateful, but how did you know the Thunderers were here?”

“Does it matter?” Zoe grabbed one of the extra-dimensional invaders in an oversized green hand and flung him into his allies. “I can leave you to fight them on your own if you’d prefer!” She glanced across at Dragonmage and the sorcerer felt a tickle in his ear as Zoe allowed the tiny eavesdropping device she’d planted in there earlier to dissipate.

The Thunderers’ weapons smashed Magno’s makeshift shield to shreds, injuring Sizzle and Bioluminescent Lass with flying shrapnel. With their years of experience working together, the more powerful Legionnaires had already moved to protect their more easily damaged teammates. “We need some room to move!” Ultra Boy shouted as Chameleon Boy in hummingbird form flew past his eye. “We’re gonna trip over each other in this jail! Cos, can you help us out?”

“Of course,” Cosmic Boy raised his arms to the ceiling and concentrated. “Cover me please, Sun Boy. Magno, you should get your injured teammates to safety.”

“I should help you with that metal,” the younger Braalian countered. “The outer layers are magnetically shielded. Trip! Get Gear, Sizzle and Jaene out of here.”

“Why am I always on nursemaid duty?” Triplicate Boy whined as the three of him collected his wounded comrades.

“Because you’d do so much good taking on one of these bruisers,” Abyss mocked him. “We all work to our strengths, nursemaid.” His void-ring bathed one of the Thunderers in black light and the man vanished screaming. Next to him another of the Thunderers fell over, the Imskian Ion wreaking havoc with his inner ear.

The woman named Twine whipped at yet another of the Thunderers with her siphoning lashes, ignoring Chameleon Boy’s warnings when he realised she was going to miss her mark in the crowded space. Instead of hitting her foe, her energy whip smacked against the forcefield holding their original captives. With an anti-climactic fizzle, the field collapsed and the Qwardians were all reunited.

“The pink woman has done part of our job for us!” one of the Qwardians bellowed. “Thunderers, complete the mission!” What came next shocked everyone present. Every armed Thunderer drew his weapon, but instead of striking the heroes they hurled their thunderbolts at their weaponless comrades. Their deaths were gory and almost instant.

“No!” Zoe grabbed the man who’d given the command in a green bubble and whisked him through the tear in the ceiling which Magno and Cosmic Boy had now made. She was out of sight in no time, only an emerald streak marking her passing. “What is wrong with you people?!” she screamed through bared teeth when she finally stopped above the clouds of Takron-Galtos. “You kill my friends and now you kill your own men?? Are you insane?!”

“The Thunderers of Qward were manipulated into slaying your fellow ringbearers to suit the purposes of one of your own people,” the man in the bubble sneered. “Nobody manipulates a Qwardian warrior successfully for long. That man is dead now, and for their failure to defeat or escape you it has been determined that our failed warriors needed to die as punishment for their failure.”

“You are crazy!” Zoe snapped. “Maybe I should kill you, you mad squaj!”

“You will not,” the Qwardian replied with a sinister smile. “Your people are not willing to kill, and that has always been your weakness.”

“With due respect to your culture,” Dragonmage’s voice joined the conversation, “It’s not a weakness. I understand why you perceive it to be one, but our respect for life is one of our greatest strengths.”

Supergirl had accompanied Dragonmage and she now spoke as well. “We’ve disarmed the rest of them,” she reported. “They said the same thing as your friend here. None of them know who this guy is who allegedly sent them after the Green Lantern Corps, and we might never find out what he had against you, but they all claim he’s dead now and they don’t have any interest in continuing hostilities.”

“I can summon a dragonform which will carry them back to Qward,” Dragonmage continued. “And once Gear is recovered, the Workforce are confident that he will be able to help erect a warning system so that we’ll have advance notice if and when the Qwardian dimensional barrier is breached again. With luck, we’ll be able to stop it from being breached at all. It’s over, Zoe.”

*********KIRINYAGASomewhere in the Portela Mountain RangesHe’d been named Gahiji at birth, but if he survived this Initiation Trek the young man walking these treacherous mountain passes already knew what name he’d take in its place. On the border world Kirinyaga, Mwindaji was a hero who’d lived long ago. He was the boldest and the most adored of the planet’s forefathers, and when Gahiji completed this journey to adulthood which was both symbolic and literal, he would take on Mwindaji’s name. It was a mark of respect, but moreso it was a statement of intent. Gahiji could not imagine himself living and dying on this world as so many of his people were content to do. Like Mwindaji of old, he wanted to explore distant worlds and cultures, discover new boundaries and traverse each and every one.

He was the strongest tracker in his class, easily able to locate even a prairie hare on the other side of the continent. His dedication to physical perfection bordered on obsession, and though he knew that this Initiation Trek would surely test him he had complete confidence that he would meet his family on the other side. Not every son of Kirinyaga was so fortunate; these mountains had seen their fare share of young corpses who’d faltered on their way to manhood, but Gahiji was determined not to be one of them.

As the dark-skinned youth used his gnarled hiking staff to push thorny bristlebush from his path, he noticed something in the deep indigo dusk skies. At first he thought it was a shooting star, but when its golden plummet changed to emerald his curiosity was piqued. Gahiji had no problem determining where the unidentified object landed. His tracking sense was sufficiently developed that he’d likely be able to trace its path even if he hadn’t seen it fall with his own eyes; having witnessed its descent, tracking it was a feat any Kirinyaga child could achieve. He considered how far following this mysterious object would take him from his path. He estimated only several hours at the most, he could still be in the arms of his mothers by morning. Gahiji considered as well the name he’d chosen for himself as a man and the reasons behind that name. Would the legendary Mwindaji balk at being sent off-course by a new discovery? Of course not. His mind made up, the athletic teen changed course without a second thought.

It took Gahiji the better part of the night to find the object of his interest. Luckily, Kirinyagan night vision served him well and he managed to avoid any and all predators which stood between he and his quarry. An hour before the sun was due to rise, the moon hanging faded in the sky, Gahiji finally found what he’d spent hours looking for. A ditch was marked in the dirt where the unidentified object had skidded to a halt after its fall from the firmament, and at its end point Gahiji found a blood-soaked man in a tattered robe. “Do not move!” Gahiji’s Interlac was heavily accented, but his panic came across clearly. This man had no obvious signs of protective clothing, it was a miracle that he was alive at all. Yet, he was alive.

“I do not know how it is that you have survived such a fall,” Gahiji blurted as he circled the man looking for obvious signs of injury. “But I pledge to do everything in my power to help restore you to health, my friend. What is your name? From where have you come?”

The bald man coughed, and a spatter of blood stained his lip. “My name?” the bald stranger repeated. “You may call me…Vidar. I don’t know how I have survived this fall from grace either…not that I’m complaining. What’s your name, son?”

“My name..?” The young tracker paused. Helping this stranger would irrevocably remove him from his Initiation Trek. But somehow, he felt that it would lead him somewhere far more adventurous. He straightened his posture and took a deep breath.

Nura Nal sat up in bed with a shocked gasp, instantly jolted out of her slumber by the jarring realism of the vision she’d just experienced. Not wasting a moment of time, she brought her flight ring to her perennially glossy lips. “Dawnstar, this is Dream Girl! Where are you?!”

“What is it, Dream Girl?” came Dawnstar’s haughty reply. “I have agreed to aid the Science Police in locating a cache of solar crystals the Taurus Gang have sequestered away in the asteroid belt.”

“Forget about that,” Dream Girl said dismissively. “Get back to Mars, you’re going to be needed.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you haven’t been the leader of the Legion of Superheroes for quite some time,” Dawnstar countered. “And without my powers, it may take the Science Police months to locate these stolen valuables.”

“Without your powers, Lightning Lass is going to die!” Nura snapped. “Now get back here!” She ended the communication before Dawnstar could protest and shook Thom Kallor next to her roughly.

“I’m awake,” the hirsute Legionnaire named Star Boy grumbled. “I was hoping you’d go back to sleep, but no such luck huh?”

“Put your costume on,” Nura commanded as she bounced out of the luxurious bed they shared and made her way toward the en suite bathroom. “Trust me lover, you’re not going to want to be naked ten minutes from now.”

**********

In the borderless void which was Quislet’s quarters, four Legionnaires waited with varying degrees of patience before a small perfectly formed black disc. Comet Queen was bent over, three-fingered hands pressed against her thighs as she tried fruitlessly to peer into the sightless depths of the black hole. “They’ve been gone like starspans,” she whined. “Can’t we call them for an update?”

“As I explained the last three times you asked,” Brainiac 5 struggled to maintain a civil tone, “I imagine it’s already quite taxing for Tellus to remain tethered here with us while he simultaneously accompanies Wildfire into Teallian space. There is no reason for us to make his task even more difficult by badgering him for constant reassurances. When there is news to impart, I trust he will do so.”

Beside the Coluan hypergenius, Tellus was hunched over in eerie stillness while Chlorophyll Kid stood next to him watching the Hykraian’s back pods anxiously. Chlor didn’t fully understand the unique visual language of the Hykraians, but his old friend Color Kid had made a point of studying Hykraian communication since joining the Legion of Superheroes and he’d shared a few pointers with Chlorophyll Kid. One of the things that Chlor remembered was that a Hykraian’s pods turned white when they were in a state of great stress or shock. Tellus’ pods had been stark white for a large part of the time he’d been on the other side of that black hole. “H-hey Grava?” Chlorophyll Kid called out nervously, “Maybe y-you shouldn’t be standing so close to that portal, we d-don’t really know h-how safe it is.”

Comet Queen didn’t move back, but swivelled to grin at the slightly overweight hero. “It’s sweet that you care, starshine. But I jumped into the tail of a comet to get my powers, a baby black hole’s not gonna scare me now.”

Immediately as she completed her statement, Tellus shuddered to life and his telepathic voice rang out in all their skulls. Legionnaires!!

Comet Queen and Chlorophyll Kid gave a surprised yelp, and even Brainiac 5 was visibly startled. My apologies, Tellus continued. But the urgency is warranted. My friends, the Teallians are invading our space! They have Wildfire captive, and Quislet seems to be working alongside them!

“What?!” Comet Queen exclaimed. “Quislet would never work with his weird energy people against us, we’re his friends! And how are they gonna invade us when they can’t even exist in our space?” She heard a poop-pop-poop which she recognised instantly and squealed in excitement which soon turned to alarm as a deep blue version of Quislet’s familiar microship zoomed straight out of the black hole, barely missing the golden heroine. Not missing a beat, Brainiac 5 projected a forcefield around himself, Comet Queen, Tellus and Chlorophyll Kid.

Outside of his Element Lad costume Jan Arrah was just one more well-dressed diner at the most exclusive eatery on Earth’s moon, though not many people were paying attention to Jan with his date stealing glances from most of the sentients in the room. In her deep jade evening dress, a dusky shawl draped over pale freckled shoulders and her fiery red hair tied up in a loose bun, Shvaughn Erin was breathtaking. “You hate ostentation,” Shvaughn smirked over a glass of Winathian rose wine. “Why’d you bring us here, Jan?”

“Because I’ve seen my partner’s bucket list,” Jan smiled back, “And this restaurant is quite high up on it. Forgive me if I want to spoil the woman I love after nearly losing her.”

Shvaughn put her glass back down and reached across the table to grip Jan’s hand. “You are too good for me, you know that?”

“Luckily for you, I’m convinced otherwise.” Jan brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. Screams diverted the couple’s attention, and they looked outside the picture window to see a Science Police patrol droid opening fire on passing skycars.

“What the sprock?” With one hand, Shvaughn reached for the modular pistol in her handbag on the floor. She drew her other hand close to her mouth and uttered an override command into her wrist-comm unit to deactivate the droid. “Nothing happened!” she exclaimed. “If someone’s hacked into SP systems—“

“Then it means we settle this in a slightly more dramatic way,” Jan completed her sentence for her. He stepped up from the table and sent an electro-static charge through his suit which clothed him immediately in a far more famous fuchsia and black outfit. He approached the huge window and turned part of the glass into free-floating oxygen, a stunt he next repeated with the droid itself. Jan turned to a nearby waiter watching in mute shock. “Sorry about the window,” he apologised. “I’ll replace it with a temporary layer of aluminium and of course the Legion will pay for a more permanent repair.”

“Jan, look out!” Shvaughn pointed past him. The Trommite hero turned just in time to see a tiny blue ship fly through the hole in the window. A golden spark leaped from the ship’s open hull into the window pane itself, and transformed into an acutely angled glass creature which slashed at Element Lad. Jan jumped back just in time to avoid being disembowelled, and before the odd creature could make a second attempt Shvaughn disintegrated it with a well-placed shot from her handgun.

“Quislet! Tell us! About! The Element Lad!” the living ember barked. “Transmutation! Powers! Useless! Against Teallian! Matter!” The Teallian re-entered his ship, but as soon as the hull closed Element Lad encased the vessel in a solid iron block and it fell with a loud thud to the restaurant floor.

“I may not be able to transform your ship,” Jan said coolly. “That doesn’t matter though when I can just trap you inside of it.” He looked gratefully at his Science Police lover. “Thanks for the assist, Shvaughn. I’d better call this in to Brainiac 5, I’m sure he’ll be just as intrigued as I am to find out why one of Quislet’s people are taking potshots at sentients on Earth’s moon.”

“Jan, it’s not just one of his people.” Shvaughn had retrieved her omnicom from her handbag now and stared at it incredulously. “SP reports are coming in faster than I can read them. This is a full-scale invasion of the United Planets!”

**********

MARS

Husband Hill, Legion of Superheroes Headquarters

In the Legion’s monitor room, Gas Girl’s jet black eyes grew wide with disbelief as she gazed at a galaxy-wide holographic tableau of violence. “They really are everywhere,” she announced to Brainiac 5 over a comms link. “Quislet’s people are opening portals all throughout known space! Mars, Earth, even Weber’s World!”

On one holoscreen Night Girl, Cosmic Boy, Timber Wolf and Color Kid faced reanimated statues of their fallen comrades Ferro Lad and Karate Kid just outside the Legion’s headquarters. On another screen the Legion of Substitute Heroes protected the citizens of Metropolis from a rampaging 30 foot tall moopsball mascot. Gas Girl’s lifelong friend Life Lass tested her powers against the Teallians on Lallor, and Takron-Galtos’s resident superhero team the Workforce had the unenviable task of fighting off Teallians while simultaneously preventing the prison planet’s criminal population from making their escape. Like Element Lad and Shvaughn Erin on Luna, Shrinking Violet and Calorie Queen’s date on Bismoll had also been interrupted. Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Damsel had stopped a Teallian from demolishing the Time Institute on Titan and Sensor Girl had reported an incursion on her isolated world of Orando. It seemed nowhere was safe from the inter-dimensional invaders.

Brainiac 5 began to utter a command, but his holographic visage flickered and faded in a shrill burst of feedback as the computer console projecting it came to life surrounded in a telltale glow. “This! Our space! Now!” the vaguely humanoid collection of metal and plastic ranted. “Legionnaires! In the way!”

The construct brought a heavy fist down on Gas Girl, and the bald heroine dissipated into a fine mist to protect herself from force powerful enough to completely shatter the chair she’d been sitting in. The Teallian took another ineffective swing at her before it burned out its current form and leaped into another console. He’s gonna destroy the whole monitor room if I don’t stop him, Gas Girl assessed the situation. What can I do though? No point corroding whatever form he’s using, that’s just destroying the building for him! It was then that she saw the extradimensional invader’s shiny blue ship hovering obediently in a high corner of the room waiting for its master. “Hey!” Gas Girl shouted. “You need that ship to stay in our dimension, right? Wonder what’ll happen when my acidic mist burns right into the hull?” Her cloudy form shifted color until it was a sickly green, and she drifted toward the vessel.

“No!” the Teallian screamed in predictable alarm. “Maybe Gas Girl! Do it! Maybe not! Not take! Risk!” The Teallian abandoned its current host and the pile of plasteel and electronics crumbled into powdery dust as he entered his ship and zoomed out of the room and into the corridor.

“Another one!” a younger girl’s voice rang out. Gas Girl’s slower moving mist form made it out of the room just in time to see the Academy student Dragonwing exhale a plume of flame which the ship expertly ducked. Her attack instead melted a small hole through the external wall of the Legion’s headquarters and the Teallian took advantage of the opportunity to flee through it.

“Are you kidding?” Chemical Kid beamed. “This is the most fun we’ve had since we came to this dusthole of a planet! It’s like playing Starship Shooters III in real life!”

Gas Girl smirked, though her facial features were vague enough in this form that it went unnoticed. It was a very brief time ago that she’d been that young and eager herself; she liked these kids. She followed the microship outside and into a scene of utter chaos. There were creatures made of rock and plasteel, converted aircars and shuttles, even a floating billboard which had absurdly grown four arms to wrestle with Elastic Lad while it flashed Interlac slogans about the health benefits of McCauley Industries detox ray treatments. A spindly long-limbed creature which had once been an antennae array swirled up Gas Girl’s form as it fell past her, then disintegrated before it hit the ground. The incorporeal heroine looked up to see Phantom Girl descending.

Tinya rolled her eyes. “I went phantom, the silly thing charged straight through me and off the roof…they may have Quislet’s powers but they don’t have his smarts.” Tinya gave her similarly insubstantial comrade an exaggerated look of seriousness. “Grife, don’t ever tell Quislet I said that. He’ll be impossible!” Phantom Girl and Gas Girl both giggled, then peered skywards when a sharp crack of thunder caught their attention.

**********

High above the Legionnaires’ home, Ayla Ranzz’s power decimated the winged metal form of the Teallian who’d pursued her this far. In the early morning sun her lightning didn’t draw much attention outside the immediate area, but the deep boom which accompanied it was heard by every sentient within a hundred feet. The thunderclap made everybody look, and that made it all the more gut-wrenching when the Teallian leaped straight from its former vessel to the golden band which Lightning Lass wore on her finger. Ayla’s eyes grew wide with horror as she realised what was happening. “No!” She clutched desperately as what had once been her flight ring morphed into a miniscule replica of a Teallian ship and darted off, glinting in the sunshine. Ayla herself plummeted like a rock, gravity taking its swift and inevitable course.

Another Teallian had engaged Gas Girl and Phantom Girl; the instant either of them turned solid to catch Ayla they’d doom themselves. Sun Boy was protecting Invisible Kid and Infectious Lass, both of whose powers were no defence against these queer invaders. Even Timber Wolf could only look on helplessly as a Teallian-possessed titanium cable kept him bound and occupied on the ground that Ayla was rushing toward.

This is so stupid, Ayla fumed. How does an ex-Light Lass die from a sprocking fall?? She thought of her brothers Garth and Mekt. She closed her eyes as the ground came closer, then screamed as she felt something entirely different slam into her and whisk her sideways. She opened one eye gingerly and saw that she was in Dawnstar’s arms. “Holy nass! Dawny!!” Ayla hugged her winged saviour with trembling arms and planted a wet kiss on her cheek. “You saved my life!! Where did you come from?? How did you even know I needed saving?! Oh sprock, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Dawnstar’s wings spread wide to slow her flight, and she deposited Lightning Lass gracefully alongside Blok, Diamond Damsel and Kid Computo. Danielle Foccart helped the far less graceful Lightning Lass stand while Blok and Diamond Damsel smashed Teallian rock creatures around them. “You may thank Dream Girl,” Dawnstar replied, wiping her cheek with the back of her sleeve. “Eternally frustrating she may be, but her precognition does have its uses. What is this madness, Legionnaires? If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were facing Quislet’s people!”

“No, no, you know just well enough.” Danielle rubbed Ayla’s shoulder while the still shaking heroine sucked down lungfuls of air and steadied herself.

“Looks like Quislet was a spy all along,” Ayla continued explaining. “We don’t really know anymore than that yet though.”

“Where is Quislet?” Dawnstar asked huffily. She narrowed her eyes and looked into the distance, completely ignoring the pitched combat going on only feet away. “My power can’t sense a trace of him anywhere. For that matter, where is Wildifire?”

Kid Computo bit her lip and shared an awkward sideways glance with Lightning Lass. “Welll….funny you should ask that…”

**********

TEALL

Inside a force bubble in a universe dominated by blazing reds and oranges, the formless anti-energy named Drake Burroughs fumed. He’d been trying to break free of the Teallians’ ensnarement since they’d started their invasion of United Planets space. The glowing spark which was Quislet in his native state hovered just outside Wildfire’s containment bubble while a seemingly endless procession of Teallian ships continued to fly off in pyramid formation to wreak havoc in Wildfire’s home dimension.

“Quislet, what the sprock is this about?!” Wildfire exploded impotently. “Your people can’t exist outside of their ships for more than a bunch of seconds at a time back home, how the sprock do they think they’re gonna take over the UP? Why do they even want to take over the UP?! Last time I was here, they were appalled by my individuality! Don’t they realise there’s a whole sprocking universe of individuality out there waiting for them?!”

“Teall not take over United Planets,” Quislet explained, “Teall annex the space, expand home dimension! When Quislet’s people inhabit matter, matter falls apart and energy released! Only little bit of energy from Quislet alone, but—“

Wildfire completed the statement, his mind racing. “—But the energy release from every one of your people, every single time they jump into something, eventually it’ll tip the balance and make my space habitable to them, and inhabitable to organic life! But that’ll take forever! What the sprock kind of nutty plan is that?!”

While not physically present, Wildfire’s Hykraian comrade Tellus had accompanied Wildfire here via mind link and thus shared his awareness of everything that transpired. We do not know the average lifespan of a Teallian, the telepathic hero reminded him. They may consider your definition of forever as something far more finite and reasonable, Wildfire.

“So you’ve been planning this the whole time you’ve been in the Legion?!” Wildfire raged at Quislet. “What were we to you, just some kicks while your pals perfected their plan to destroy our whole dimension? Damn it Quislet, we trusted you!”

“Quislet’s people not want to annex your space at first,” Quislet replied. “First they want to find other energy beings like us, to assimilate. When they find out your space full of sentients they can’t assimilate then Teall scared, but after Quislet’s ship wrecked and Quislet sent home Teall came up with new plan! They send Quislet back to spy on Legion, to send reports about Legionnaire powers so they know how to fight Legion! And then they decide to take Legion’s space!”

“And you just helped them?!” Wildfire ranted. “Are you nuts?! What am I saying, of course you're nuts! And I’m just as crazy for ever coming after you!”

“Not Quislet’s fault!” the Teallian pleaded. “Teallians change Quislet to make him more like them! Quislet fight back but Quislet couldn’t fight forever! Quislet never want to hurt Legion but Teall make him thinksame! And then Fearstorm scared it out of Quislet, made Quislet more like old self! But too late then! Too late for anything! Quislet come home to try and talk Teall out of crazy plan but Teallians got Quislet good! Wildfire should never have come to Teall, Quislet’s people do the same to Wildfire too now!”

Wildfire! Tellus exclaimed telepathically. What he describes sounds like behaviour modification! If that is the case, Quislet was never truly responsible for his betrayal at all!

Maybe so but that doesn’t help us fix this, Wildfire thought back. “You need to tell your people to come to their senses,” he said out loud to Quislet. “You know the Legion will stop them, but how many sentients are gonna get hurt in the meantime? You really want that on your conscience?”

“Quislet can’t help it!” he protested. “Quislet don’t want to hurt anybody but Quislet different now! Teallians made Quislet like them!”

If only my powers could affect our friend’s mind, Tellus pondered, I could have a chance of restoring Quislet to his original state. Working together we could perhaps end this without the need for violence. I am sorry Wildfire, I have failed.

Wait a minute, Wildfire considered their dilemma. You can’t affect Quislet’s mind because he’s an energy being, right?

That is correct, Tellus replied.

Wildfire had an epiphany. Tellus! I’m an energy being! If you can get into my head, what makes Quislet so different?!

I have conferred with Brainiac 5 about this, Tellus explained. The strength of his psychic link shared the concepts he was thinking as strongly as it shared the words which described those concepts. Our understanding is that when you lost your human body, you instinctively structured your anti-energy matrix to replicate your neural network as accurately as possible. If I am to be honest I do not understand the science at all, but I am comfortable deferring to Brainac 5’s expertise in this. Quislet never had a human brain, his physical make-up is so divorced from any other living creature I have known that my powers do not even recognise him as possessing a mind at all.

So all we have to do, Drake Burroughs mused sardonically, Is get Quislet to become a completely different species. Easy. He paused a moment. You know, maybe it is actually easy..!

I sense what you are planning, Tellus spoke into Drake Burroughs’ mind. It seems highly improbable if I may say, my friend.

I’m a ball of anti-energy carrying someone’s disembodied mind into a universe completely unlike my own. I think we left probability back a ways ago, Tellus. Wildfire called Quislet’s name out loud. “You remember when you were teaching me how to conform my energy into a corporeal body?” Wildfire asked. “How did you do that?”

“Quislet know energy matrices,” the tiny Teallian responded. “Quislet know how to shape their fields, teach Wildfire how to shape. But Wildfire not very good at it, how that help Wildfire now?”

“I’m terrible at it,” Wildfire agreed. “But you, you’re really good.”

“Quislet good at everything,” the ego-driven entity started to warm to the subject.

“Why, I’ll bet you could even mimic the structure of whatever passes for my brain these days so you could speak to Tellus too!” Wildfire prompted him.

“Quislet never try before,” he answered. “But Quislet bet he can do it easy! How hard can Wildfire’s brain be?” His energy form seemed to change frequency somehow. Wildfire wasn’t entirely sure how or even how he could sense it, but he did sense it. And do did Tellus.

Contact! the Hykraian exclaimed.

For the first time since they’d joined the Legion of Superheroes together, Tellus had more than a vague peripheral awareness of Quislet’s psyche. As overwhelming as Teall itself was, Quislet was driven by simple desires; hedonism, independence, altruism, friendship. Tellus was glad that his friend’s mind was so easily understood, because operating through Wildfire as a proxy he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength of will to access Quislet if the Teallian Legionnaire were even half as complex as any of his organic comrades.

It was easy to see where the Teallian hive mind had grafted their personality additions on to the rebel in their midst to make him a more docile servant. The crippling obedience and need for approval were like grey webbed cocoons around the joyously vibrant strands of energy that made Quislet unique. Normally Tellus didn’t approve of using his own telepathy in an aggressive manner, but these people had hurt his friend in a way that he knew somewhere deep inside Quislet abhorred. Tellus wasn’t going to fail him now. He visualised the personality grafts as seaweed, his strong Hykraian paws rending them to shreds of astral matter which floated away on the tide as he swiped again and again to reveal the pure white star of Quislet’s inner essence.

Stop! A barrage of angry psionic voices screeched. Intruder! Make Quislet! Thinkapart! Teall! Won’t let! Intruder! Bring! The traitor! Back! The drab ribbons began to form again around Quislet’s mind. As much as Tellus tried to tear them away, the Hykraian knew he was not strong enough to oppose an entire race of sentient beings when that race was united as one overpowering force.

“Tellus done enough,” Quislet said out loud, having felt his telepathic teammate’s despair. “Quislet do this wrong before, Quislet try to fight Teall! Maybe Quislet learn something from Wildfire and Tellus! Now Quislet teach Teall to be like him!”

Quislet, no! Tellus protested, realising what he was going to attempt.

"What the hell’s going on?!" Wildfire shouted. He had some awareness that there was a psychic conflict occurring but Tellus’ link with him didn’t extend to allow Drake to be connected to the struggle going on around Quislet’s psyche at the moment. All he could sense was the heightened emotion coming from both his teammates and the rest of the Teallians, and the physical presence of a growing number of Teallians surrounding them all.

Both physically and astrally, Quislet’s brightness began to bleed into the Teallians around him. They changed color ever so slightly, and their frequency changed as his energy flowed through them all. The effect spread out, and then something amazing happened. Each individual Teallian became a different hue to his neighbour. Their frequencies all rose or fell only the most minute amount, with each one finding its own unique point of vibration. Influenced by the only individual mind their species had ever spawned, the Teallian hive mind transformed itself into a race of unique entities. The wave that Quislet had started was propelled by his fellow Teallians, and soon not a one of them was spared from its individualising effect. The Teallians crackled once more, and an ember of energy instantly familiar to Wildfire and Tellus reformed before them.

“Quislet save the day again!” the exuberant little spark boasted. With no effort at all, he released Wildfire from the containment bubble in which he’d been trapped this whole time.

“Okay, someone explain to me what just happened!” Wildfire complained. “We’re all friends now?? What the sprock, you two?!”

“Like Quislet said,” the once-again cocky adventurer explained, “Quislet teach Teall to be like him! Teallians all their own people now! Minds still connected, but not one! Teallians have to make up their own minds what they want to do now but they don’t know how yet so they all come home to learn! Quislet going to visit lots and teach them to be awesome heroes like Quislet, the best Legionnaire of all!”

We were still connected for some of that process, Tellus explained more fully. It seems that as the Teallians could influence Quislet’s matrix, he could also influence theirs. It was something that had never occurred to him to try, and it has evolved their entire race! They are all retreating, Wildfire! Quislet really has won the day! Our friend has returned to us!

“Well that’s just great,” Wildfire groaned. “If his ego was planet-size before, it’s gonna be as big as a sprockin’ star system now. Come on…

…Let’s get our nasses outta here.”

**********

QWARD

Q’Uld, the Voidrim

On a world of golden sands and the ruins of buildings which had once dominated those sands, there stood a city. Many of the cities of Qward had fallen over the centuries and not risen again, but this city…this city had stood. The citystate of Q’Uld was a thin crescent-shaped testament to the enduring stamina of the Qwardian people. Internal power struggles, interdimensional assaults from the Green Lantern Corps, the Sinestro Corps, Krona, the Descendants of Mongul, several incarnations of Earth's Justice Leagues and Rannian champions, nameless predators from the Bleed or the higher or lower planes of the multiverse, none of these things had managed to permanently wipe out the war-borne Thunderers of Qward. Q’Uld was their proudest remaining seat of power, and it loomed over an enormous void which devoured anything that plunged into its unholy depths. Sometimes, standing on the Voidrim, the Thunderers felt the bone-chilling wails of the lost souls it had been swallowing since before the beginning of recorded time. Only one creature had ever emerged from the Void, the Qwardian deity Erdammeru. Erdammeru the Void Hound had rained terror down upon the Qwardians, taught them the value of violence and was responsible for their devotion to the art and tools of war.

One of those tools was the golden ring which currently sat upon the finger of a cloaked bald man. A green twin sat on his other finger, and he huddled inside his cloak now while these weapons for once used their power for a constructive purpose to heal his broken body. He tried to hide his weakness from Highlord Ofreie, the stoic armoured Qwardian who currently walked the Voidrim as his companion. The cloaked bald man was not a Qwardian, he was not from this universe at all. He had found his way here through guile and the application of his vast and self-serving intellect, and those gifts had done him well so far but he couldn’t afford to rest on his laurels.

“How many more of my Thunderers died?” Highlord Ofreie asked bluntly. His voice was booming and his enormous round eyes seemed to stare into the cloaked human too well.

“All of them,” the Earthman answered without hesitation. He knew it wouldn’t serve him well to try and sugarcoat it. “Larfleeze killed them all. I was lucky to escape with my life at all.”

“When you came to my world,” the leader of the Qwardian people decreed, “You came with promises that we would gain the power of all of the Corps. Instead, we have found slaughter at the hands of Green and Orange Lanterns.”

“A temporary setback,” the shorter man replied quickly. “Don’t forget I also brought you a yellow ring and a green ring. The Orange Lantern was more savage than I anticipated, but with reinforcements—“

“It has not escaped my attention that you wear those rings, human.” The Highlord stopped strolling and looked down at the bald man. The Qwardian was a full head higher than his interdimensional ally. “I know, I know...until we learn to reverse-engineer the weaponry they are the only rings we own. And you are far more familiar with their workings than we are. When you proposed to wear them in our service until our enemies were dead, admittedly that prospect was enticing to me. It has been many many cycles since our people had enemies to face in bloody battle.”

“You can’t be getting cold feet now!” the human man protested. “We slaughtered the Green Lantern Corps, we can kill Larfleeze! We’ll find the other rings and your Thunderers will have the power of all seven Corps! Just as I promised!”

“You have delivered something substantially different to your promise, human. You have delivered us to the attention of Sodam Yat, to the attention of the female Green Lantern who absorbed her comrade’s power. You delivered us to the attention of the Orange Lantern, to the authorities of your universe who now hold those Thunderers whom survived your scheming like rats in a cage. You have not delivered us new enemies…you have pointed your enemies toward us. And I suspect you would find it hard to depart with the power of the Emotional Spectrum were we to help you find it. Simply put…the risk outweighs the benefits.”

The human man felt a sharp stabbing pain in his gut which wrenched the breath out of him. His mouth gaped in confusion and he coughed thick blood up onto the jagged blade which Highlord Ofreie had skilfully inserted into his torso. The Highlord slashed sideways before his victim could put either of his two rings to use, and the human man screamed in agony as more of his blood spattered the Qwardian’s golden armour. “You…you…I’ll…” the bald human staggered, remaining conscious only through sheer force of will. Green energy already began to seep across his open wound, but before he could go on the offence the Highlord simply smashed him across the temple with the heavy handle of the knife. The cloaked human tipped over the edge of the barricade upon which they’d been walking alongside and tumbled silently into the whipping winds of the Void.

Highlord Ofreie watched the man fall long enough to placate himself that he was truly doomed, and then turned away to walk from the Voidrim back into the city which he ruled with an iron fist. “The Thunderers of Qward are no man’s pawns,” the Highlord proclaimed to his departed victim.

Xao Jin groaned as he stirred into consciousness. He instantly realised he was no longer on the Orange Lantern’s junkyard planet, and it only took a couple of seconds longer for him to recognise his surroundings as the sickbay on one of the Legion of Superheroes’ cruisers. He looked across to see Polar Boy and Chameleon Boy in their own beds, Zoe and Light Lad watching over them. “What happened..?” the groggy young sorcerer asked. He tried to sit up and thought better of it immediately. “Larfleeze..?”

“The atmosphere of Larfleezia turned out to be quite volatile,” Light Lad explained when he saw the confusion on Dragonmage’s face. “Tenzil told Fire Lad to set it alight as a distraction to cover our escape, and…well, one megascraper-sized fireball later and Larfleeze thinks we’ve been incinerated. Which isn’t surprising as we very nearly were.”

“The others?” Dragonmage looked across at his bedridden comrades.

“They’ll both be fine,” Darvan reassured him. “Just a little banged up. We’re all a little banged up, Larfleeze and his agents are scary powerful!”

“I shouldn’t have taken you with me,” Zoe admitted glumly. “I could have gotten you all killed, I’m sorry.”

“You might have gotten yourself killed if we hadn’t been there,” Dragonmage countered with a pained smile. “I’d rather take some bruises if the alternative is losing a friend.”

“At least it’s all over now.” Zoe gave a dejected sigh. “The way Larfleeze was acting made me think he’d come across a Green Lantern before we got there. So when I woke up on your ship I checked and one of the Green Lantern rings is unaccounted for. Those Thunderers must have taken it on Oa, and then they tried to take Larfleeze’s ring, and well…he killed them all and I can’t find any trace of the missing ring so I guess he destroyed that too. I can’t believe my friends died so that those monsters could get one sprocking ring and I never even got a chance to avenge them.” Her voice cracked as she finished talking, and Zoe wiped at her eyes with the back of her gloved hand.

“Cham and Polar Boy don’t need me while they’re resting,” Light Lad announced quietly to Dragonmage and Zoe. "I’ll give you two a little privacy.”

Darvan left the sickbay, and Zoe Saugin considered her next move.

**********

MARS

Husband Hill, Legion of Superheroes Headquarters

ROLL CALL

Brainiac 5 aka Querl Dox: 12th level intelligence, team leader

Chlorophyll Kid aka Ral Benem: hyper-stimulated plant growth

Comet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generation

Tellus aka Ganglios: telepathy and telekinesis

Wildfire aka Drake Burroughs: anti-energy being

“So what’s the little jerk done now, Brainy?” Wildfire stood in the featureless space of Quislet’s quarters and looked over the black hole floating before them all.

“We don’t know that Quislet has done anything,” Brainiac 5 answered calmly while Comet Queen poked her tongue out at Wildfire. “From Comet Queen’s reports it seems that he retreated into isolation after Fearstorm’s psionic assault. His fellow Teallians may have simply chosen to exploit that isolation to abduct him once more.”

“Last time you got him back straight away!” Comet Queen railed. “It’s been days this time around! Parse me to the C-Span, the shiny little shuttle could be dead already!”

“You never heard of conservation of energy?” Wildfire retorted bluntly.

“Under the examinations of both myself and the Science Police, neither Wildfire nor Quislet have displayed signs of anything approximating atomic decay,” Brainiac explained more thoroughly. “It seems that one of the basic precepts of physics holds true for them as it does for any other form of energy; they naturally remain constant.”

Chlorophyll Kid thought on the matter for a moment. “B-but…how do you replenish—"

“Can we get on with this?” Wildfire interrupted. "Not that I don’t enjoy talking about how I’m gonna outlive everyone I’ve ever loved but truth be told, I really don’t enjoy it.”

“Prepared and quite eager if I may say so,” the gentle Hykraian’s voice modulator sounded. “Ensuring Quislet’s safety is of course my first priority, but I must admit that the opportunity to explore Teall with Wildfire’s assistance is one that I find fascinating.”

“I’m nebula-hazy,” Comet Queen pouted. “Quislet told me baryonic matter can’t exist in his crazy energy world the same way he can’t exist in ours without his shinygleaming microship…and how’s Tellus gonna fit in that little hole anyway?” She pointed at the perfectly black disc which was barely large enough to fit Quislet’s ship.

“It is true that I cannot physically enter Teall,” Tellus explained patiently, “Nor can my telepathy unaided communicate with the Teallians. Wildfire can exist in both worlds however, and by linking my mind to his I will be able to sense Teall as he does. I will also act as his bridge to the rest of you.” Tellus let the soft wave of his telepathy wash over Grava, subtly excluding the others. I know how important Quislet is to you, Comet Queen. He is my friend also. We will bring him back.

Comet Queen hugged herself and smiled shyly. It had been a long time since she’d been a student alongside Tellus at the Legion Academy and the two had never been particularly close, but she had always felt that he had a respect for her she wasn’t sure she’d earned. “Thanks Space-Fishy,” she mouthed silently.

“Come on,” Drake Burroughs prompted Tellus. “Do your head-voodoo and let’s go get back the one Legionnaire who’s ever been a bigger pain in the butt than me.” He opened his mind to Tellus and felt an initial icy rush followed by a warm flow of inquisitive empathy.

While the Hykraian’s enormous yellow body remained motionless beside the others, Wildfire could unmistakably feel Tellus’ presence in his mind. Indeed, Tellus agreed. Let us depart.

Brainiac 5 surrounded everyone else in a forcefield to protect them from unintended backwash as Wildfire faced the black hole and raised his visor. For an instant, the blazing light of explosive anti-energy filled the borderless space of Quislet’s room and then Wildfire’s empty costume drifted to a floating rest. Brainiac 5 dropped his forcefield and Comet Queen rushed to pick up Wildifire’s costume. Clutching it to her bosom while Chlorophyll Kid stood close by, she looked into the void that had claimed her friend.

“Good luck, starshines,” she whispered into the darkness.

**********

Tellus had often wondered how it was that Wildfire interpreted reality visually when he no longer had eyes. He supposed it must be some function of Drake Burroughs’ Terran mind trying to retain as much of a link to its previous existence as it could. Right now, Tellus wasn’t sure how to feel about that. To Wildfire’s mind, Teallian space was an overwhelming plane of black and white areas which appeared flat but at the same time three-dimensional. Tellus’ own eyes weren’t as adjusted to certain fields of vision as those of his mammalian friends and he’d had to teach himself to adjust when seeing through their senses, but this was a different matter entirely.

It’s weird for me too, Wildfire admitted. And it’s weird that this link goes both ways…I can kind of feel what you’re projecting but I don’t think you’re consciously projecting it…does that make sense?

For this level of connection there will be some natural ebb and flow between our minds, Tellus explained. Imagine it as a tide drawing closer and further to shore. There is a subsurface level where the connection remains strong, but we will co-mingle at other depths as they happen to come into contact as well.

I guess now I know how Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl’s psychic rapport feels, Wildfire mused. Have to admit, it’s not as creepy as I thought it would be. Tellus clearly felt what was swimming between those words. ...I wish I could have this with Dawnstar.

It was difficult to gauge either time or spatial dimension here, but soon they seemed to be closing in on a particular black area in front of/surrounding them. There’s something I gotta warn you, Wildfire confessed. This is just the border space between Teall and our world. Teall is not gonna be anything you can prepare for, just like nothing I could have said would have prepared you for this weirdo place. But Tellus, when we get there you need to be on top of your game.

The Teallians nearly assimilated you upon your last visit, Tellus picked up from his teammate’s thoughts. Wildfire, why did you not tell us of this before we left?? I sense that you barely escaped with your energy form and psyche intact!

Last time Quislet came back here we just let him, Wildfire explained.Tellus could feel his guilt like a burning grip. Better than anyone else I knew what was waiting for him back here, and I always wondered if I should have done more to try and help him. This is my chance to make that up to him…and if Brainy knew how dangerous this was last time there’s no way he’d risk sending me back now. But Quislet and I made it out on our own when we were last here. This time we’ve got your help, there’s no way we can fail.

Let us hope not, Tellus replied. Together they felt reality around them change structure somehow. It were as though they were being compressed and simultaneously stretched out into an infinitely long and thin cylindrical space. They tasted something like battery acid as their minds tried desperately to interpret the physics-bending changes taking place any way they could. They were overcome with a sickening sense of vertigo and then they could have sworn Wildfire’s naked energy form made the same annoying poop-pop-poop as Quislet’s tiny ship as they were expelled into a geometric sea of fiery orange and yellow particles. The micro-dimension of Teall felt impossibly larger than the threshold they’d traveled through to reach here, but at the same time claustrophobically small. Tellus had to call on meditative techniques he’d learned before ever leaving Hykraius to centre himself in this hellish miasma.

You okay buddy? Wildfire asked.

I do not like this place, Tellus answered almost fearfully. I feel far from the embrace of Great Mother Ocean here, Wildfire.

Five fiercely glowing embers shot through the matrix toward them like comets through a blazing sky. They were at once like torpedoes shooting through an ocean but at the same time almost seemed like a virtual simulation, mathematically mapped out to precise points. Everything felt right-angled here, unnatural. Back on Mars, Tellus could feel the pods on his back turn a stark white color. He held on to that, held on to the dim awareness of Brainiac 5, Comet Queen and Chlorophyll Kid’s concern for them. He was afraid without it he would lose his anchor and drift madly here forever.

“Outsider!” one of the embers trilled in a voice unerringly similar to Quislet’s. “But! Familiar!” Each word came from a different glowing lifeform, continuing flawlessly from its predecessor.

I see them as you do, Tellus confided to Wildfire. But my telepathy senses them no more than it senses Quislet.

That’s not necessarily a disadvantage, Wildfire thought back at his teammate. They can’t sense you either. They think I’m here alone. With whatever passed for his voice in this space, Wildfire addressed the Teallians. “You should recognise me,” he announced. “I’ve been here once before, the last time you tried to kidnap my friend. I’m here to help him come home, just like last time.”

“What have you done to him?” Wildfire asked. He wished he didn’t feel so helpless here. “What do you mean he’s fixed now?”

“We! Show!” the Teallians crowed. Three of them positioned themselves in triangulation around Wildfire and encased him in a bubble of invisible force. The other two shot away into the distance.

Don’t panic, Wildfire comforted Tellus silently. Once they bring Quislet here, we’ll figure out a way to escape.

Tellus didn’t respond. He knew Wildfire was accustomed to blasting his way out of any situation, but Tellus had a sinking feeling this was one problem they weren’t going to be able to charge their way through. The absent Teallians returned soon enough, a new glowing ember alongside them. Somehow, Wildfire and through him Tellus knew the newcomer was their comrade despite the fact that he was visually identical to his fellow Teallians. Tellus wondered if perhaps Wildfire’s own energy form responded to some unique emission of Quislet’s on a subconscious level which allowed Wildfire to recognise him without even being aware of it.

“Wildfire should not have come to Teall,” Quislet responded. There was something in his voice that Wildfire had never heard, something he couldn’t quite place. Then it dawned on him. It was contrition.

“Quislet, stop messing around!” Wildfire snapped. “I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but you don’t have to put up with it! We can help you, Tellus came with me!”

“Sorry?” Wildfire asked. “Sorry about what? Quislet, what’s going on?” It was then that Drake Burroughs noticed more of the shining sparks of life which were the Teallians shooting through the blazing cosmos toward them. A handful more stopped near them, followed by twice as many more. A couple dozen more came, and many more after them. Soon a pyramid formation of Teallians floated before them, each one an exactly calculated distance from his neighbour. “Quislet!” Wildfire shouted. “Tell me what’s going on, damn it!”

“Quislet sorry!” the Teallian Legionnaire repeated. “Quislet not want to hurt Legion, Legion Quislet’s friends. But too late for that, too late for anything now!” As he spoke, the pyramid formation of Teallians focused their energy alteration abilities and each individual constructed a micro-ship around himself. Whereas Quislet’s ship was a gleaming chrome though, these ships were a deep metallic blue, sinister red trim highlighting their rounded curves.

Wildfire, what is happening? Tellus asked, alarmed.

The dark ships flew off in formation, dozens upon dozens of them following the path Wildfire and Tellus had taken to get here. Still entrapped by the handful of Quislet’s people they’d originally encountered, Drake Burroughs could only watch in horror. Tellus, warn Brainy! Wildfire ordered urgently.

Ral Benem took a gulp of his nutrient shake as he climbed the emergency stairs on his way from the Legion’s gym back to his personal quarters. The shake tasted foul, but Stone Boy had sworn it would help him replace electrolytes lost from physical activity while giving Ral the protein he’d need to repair and build muscle mass. Coming from Zwen, a planet not quite as technologically advanced as the UP standard, Stone Boy had been a great aid in helping Chlorophyll Kid lose weight as naturally as possible. It was also his idea for Ral to take the stairs where possible instead of relying on the people-moving technologies the rest of the Legion took for granted. His legs felt like Ventura Jelly after the intensive workout he’d just pushed himself through, but Ral had to admit that it felt good accomplishing his goals through his own hard work rather than letting a cellular trim-ray do the job for him. He was panting and wiping sweat from his brow when he came across Comet Queen sitting by the door to the first of the residential levels. She was holding her knees up close to her flat chest and she looked utterly miserable. “Comet Queen?” Chlorophyll Kid questioned. “What are you doing here all on your own?”

“I’m sorry, starshine,” she sniffed. “This is like the border territories of Legionland, nobody ever uses these stairs. I didn’t think I’d bother anyone here.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“You’re not bothering me,” Chlorophyll Kid reassured her. “I guess it’s just a weird place to hang out…h-hey, have you been crying?” He crouched down to her eye level.

“It’s Quislet!” Grava bawled. “He hasn’t come out of his room in days and nobody cares but me!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed loudly.

“No!!” Comet Queen blurted. She looked up at Chlorophyll Kid imploringly. “Don’t say that! Everyone says that, but what they mean is we just don’t matter! When Lightning Lad died, the rest of the Legionnaires couldn’t wait to sacrifice themselves to bring him back! When Shrinking Violet got kidnapped by that creep Micro Lad, the Legion ran after her faster than a tachyon burst when they found out! Parse me to the C-span, they tried to clone Lyle Norg and Ferro Lad! Bouncy told us all about it when I was at the Academy! Do you know what they did when Quislet’s first shuttle went full Q-dispersal and he phantomed back to Teall? Nothing! They knew his weird energy people hated him and they didn’t do a thing about it! They treat me and him both like we’re in elliptical orbits and we just don’t matter!” She had worked herself up too much to continue and lost herself into disconsolate wailing once more.

Chlorophyll Kid felt something come over him. Part of it was guilt. Like everyone else on the team, he tended to identify Comet Queen and Quislet more in terms of their idiosyncratic personality quirks than anything deeper than that. But a larger part of what he was feeling now was empathy. He’d been a member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes a lot longer than he’d been in the Legion of Superheroes, and for years the larger Legion had ignored and underestimated Ral and his friends. Even Polar Boy had turned his back on the Subs when he joined the Legion of Superheroes. As much as that had hurt, Chlorophyll Kid couldn’t deny that making it into the Legion of Superheroes himself had given him a sense of validation that he shouldn’t have needed to have felt. He was proud to be a full-fledged member of the Legion of Superheroes, but he knew that there was a particular elitism that permeated this team.

Ral gently lifted Grava’s chin up so she was facing him again. “Come on,” he said with a determination that shocked her out of her hysteria.

“Where?” the young heroine was clueless. “Where are we going, starshine?”

“You do matter,” Chlorophyll Kid declared firmly. “So does Quislet. And it’s time someone else in this team learned that.” He stood and offered his hand to help Grava to her feet, then gripping her hand tightly Ral Benem stormed off toward Brainiac 5’s multi-lab.

**********

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE UNITED PLANETS SPACE

ROLL CALL

Dragonmage aka Xao Jin: dragon magic

Supergirl aka Kara Zor-El: Kryptonian physiology

Zoe Saugin: non-Legionnaire, infused withGreen Lantern energy

Zoe Saugin had followed the trail of the Thunderers of Qward so swiftly that even Supergirl had to make an effort to match her speed. The Legion of Superheroes’ young sorcerer Dragonmage would never have been able to follow his old friend’s trail using his flight ring and he was glad that Supergirl had been there to carry him. Glowing an iridescent green, Zoe paused before a large brownish-grey world. It was the first time she’d stopped in nearly 30 minutes of space flight, and it gave the two Legionnaires the opportunity they’d been waiting for. Kara flew directly in front of Zoe, and Xao pointed at his ear. Zoe was confused for a moment, but she soon realised that he was trying to find a way to communicate with her and she used her power to transmit her voice from her ring to his telepathic earplug. “You two didn’t need to come,” she warned them. “This is a dangerous place for anyone who’s not a Green Lantern. What’s down there is not likely to be much fun for me as it is."

“It’s not about power,” Zoe explained. “This planet is Larfleezia. The one and only Orange Lantern rules here with an iron fist, an immeasurably old alien named Larfleeze. He signed a peace treaty with the Green Lantern Corps nearly a thousand years ago, Sodam Yat taught us about him. Larfleeze wasn’t supposed to bother us and we wouldn’t bother him. My power’s tracked the Thunderers of Qward here, if they think they can hide out on his planet they’ve thought wrong. He’ll give me the Thunderers to satisfy the terms of our treaty, he won’t take kindly to any other outsiders though. It’s best you stay here.”

Supergirl had a faraway look in her eye as she gazed upon the ugly planet. “Are you sure there’s only one Orange Lantern?” she asked.

“He may not have lived through enough of it,” Kara retorted. She released Dragonmage and took point in front of her two fellow travellers. “Because there are a whole lot of Orange Lanterns flying up to meet us right now.”

Zoe looked planetside and her already green eyes flared a slightly brighter emerald. “You’re right,” she admitted in a confused tone. “There’s an army of them approaching us…but that makes no sense, orange is the color of avarice! The whole reason there’s only one Orange Lantern is that Larfleeze refuses to share his power with anyone else! He never has! Why would he have his own corps now?”

“Wait, you said avarice?” Dragonmage thought on the matter. He could see the beginnings of the army that ascended through Larfleezia’s unbreathable atmosphere, dozens upon dozens of tiny gleaming orange lights twinkling in the murky fog. “You mean greed? Zoe, what if he’s decided he wants to be the only Lantern? If this Larfleeze can’t possess the other colors, maybe he’s just as happy to see them destroyed!”

The question remained unanswered. Powered by the orange light, Larfleeze’s agents swarmed the three heroes in no time. A platoon of automatons hit them like a wall of force, their metallic shells illuminated by neon orange strips of light. Supergirl’s invulnerable form shielded Dragonmage from the brunt of the attacking force, but sheer numbers soon separated them. He saw a flash of Kara's cape beneath a mountain of metal and completely lost sight of Zoe within seconds. Paradoxically, as much as the multitude of robots made them impossibly daunting opponents it also gave Xao some measure of safety. They swept over him like an unstoppable tidal wave of force, but none of the stronger and more durable machines had yet targeted him individually. Still, he knew his luck couldn’t hold out. Tumbling through the void of space as he was, bouncing painfully from one metal shell to the next, he couldn’t focus his concentration enough to summon a dragonform. He needed a moment to find his centre, just one moment.

Granting his wish in the most backhanded way, one of the robots grabbed Dragonmage by the throat. Its orange optical sensors blazed, and he heard a painfully shrill voice rip through his skull. “You think you can steal from Larfleeze? Nobody steals from Larfleeze! The Orange Agents will destroy you for even trying! Larfleezia and everything on it belongs to the God of the Orange Light!”

Dragonmage was no robotics expert, but he had the highly uncomfortable sensation that this thing was about to kill him. You wanted more experience with combat magic, he chided himself, Well here it is. Grimacing, Xao Jin knew he didn’t have the luxury of an elegant solution. An enormous jade dragon appeared behind him, its powerful jaws yawning wide enough to swallow both Dragonmage and his foe whole. Appearing suddenly in the middle of the robots as it had, it smashed several of them into their fellows. Its spreading wings and flicking tail took care of double that number. Finally, its roar of fury somehow travelling through the vacuum unaided, the dragon dashed forward and ripped the head clean off of Dragonmage’s robotic opponent. A dragonform this large and powerful was difficult to control, but outnumbered as he was, Dragonmage wasn’t too concerned about control. He trusted both Supergirl and Zoe to be able to keep clear of the beast, and he was happy for it to take out as many of these so-called Orange Agents as possible. Using his flight ring to mount the dragonform’s scaled head, Dragonmage felt something surprising as it tore through the ranks of the artificial beings’ ranks.

He was enjoying himself.

**********

“Get off of me!”

Supergirl hurled two of the robots into the crowd of metal which surrounded her. One of their appendages continued to grip ineffectively at her forearm until the rest of its body smashed to smithereens against its troopmates and the orange light which had given it life faded. More accurately, the light didn’t fade so much as it dispersed into near invisibility and beamed back down to the planet’s surface. It was something most other people wouldn’t have noticed, but with her enhanced senses very little in this universe was hidden from Kara Zor-El.

One of the things which was hidden from her right now was Dragonmage’s whereabouts. Nor could Kara see Zoe Saugin. There was a lot of lead in these metal shells, and there were a lot of metal shells. Supergirl’s x-ray vision was useless here, and it stopped her from truly releasing her power. As much as she’d have liked to incinerate the robots en masse, she had to make sure Zoe and Xao were safe first. Think, Kara. Twin beams of red light shot forth form her eyes to penetrate two of the attackers, her fists demolishing another three of them. Super-hearing is useless in space, and even if it wasn’t I doubt it’d overcome a hundred stupid robots screaming through my flight ring about their stupid orange god…I can’t see through these dumb machines, there must be some way to find Xao and his Green Lantern pal and get them out of this mechanical feeding frenzy! An animalistic roar came over the space battle even as Supergirl was lamenting that she couldn’t hear anything, and she cocked her head to one side with a puzzled expression. In the distance, dozens of robots flew in all directions and an enormous dragon appeared from out of nowhere. Kara smiled. Guess I found Dragonmage. She flew through a wall of the robots like a human battering ram, calling on a wide swath of heat vision to annihilate another squad of them who’d been getting in position to fire on the young sorcerer from above his field of vision. You’re full of surprises, Supergirl complimented him telepathically now that they were once again within range to use their earplugs to communicate. Nice one, short stuff!

Dragonmage blushed furiously. It’s really nothing, but thank you. Have you seen Zoe?

A brilliant explosion of emerald light caught the duo’s attention, dozens of robots flying from the force of rapidly expanding green energy a few miles away. I think she’s over there, Supergirl deadpanned. You wanna go have an old-fashioned superhero team-up?

Sure, I— Dragonmage cried out sharply, and though the sound didn’t travel beyond his transuit the telepathic connection passed on a knife of pain to Supergirl’s mind as well.

Unused to the sensation, Kara reeled for a second. Dragonmage, what is it? she asked. She instantly saw the cause of their mutual pain for herself. The robots weren’t just strong, a lot of them had cannons in their appendages or weapon ports in their heads or torsos. They worked together now to fire upon the dragon which had scattered so many of them, and the onslaught of orange energy was causing psionic feedback. The dragon shimmered and faded from existence, and no sooner had it gone than they turned their energy assault on Supergirl and her dazed teammate. Supergirl leaped to action, hugging Xao close and protecting him with her own hide for the second time today. The robots had them surrounded though, and their energy assault was hurting even Kara. If a single beam hit Dragonmage, he’d be dead for sure. She racked her brain for a way to get him to safety, but she couldn’t think of a method which would leave him unharmed. With the speed and efficiency with which these robots were surrounding the two teenagers, staying in one place wasn’t going to protect him for long either.

Suddenly a bunch of robots on one side were enveloped in a red flash of light which left them smouldering and half melted. A red and blue blur zoomed through more of them, tearing them to pieces and scattering them. Finally, a thin sheen of ice developed over more of the automatons, and the newly brittle hunks of frozen metal shattered just as easily before the charge of the petrified Legionnaire Stone Boy. Stone Boy and Polar Boy hovered before Supergirl and the now recovered Dragonmage while Mon-El and Ultra Boy continued to deal destruction on a grand scale to the robots in the immediate area. With a clearing made in the machine onslaught, Supergirl’s telescopic vision picked up the Legion’s shuttle near one of Larfleezia’s moons and her x-ray vision told her Chameleon Boy, Fire Lad, Light Lad and Matter-Eater Lad were on board. No doubt you could have found a way out of that mess yourself, Stone Boy greeted them via telepathic earplug, but when Ultra Boy’s penetra-vision saw you both underneath a dogpile of robots he thought neither of you would be ungrateful for the assist either.

He was right, Supergirl gave her rescuers a grateful smile. And I always say one good turn deserves another. She sped forward and smashed through five of the automatons surrounding Jo Nah.

Thanks, Jo winked. I could have taken them but you know, one power at a time means I have to think a little more about it.

Stone Boy traded blows with another of the Orange Agents while Polar Boy’s ice shields kept orange energy blasts at bay. Dragonmage was in the process of casting a new dragonform when he suddenly vanished in a streak of green light. Green’s good, right? a surprised Polar Boy asked. Green’s one of ours?

Stone Boy gave a brief look of concern before his fist caved in his opponent’s face plate. Let’s hope so.

**********

Dragonmage looked around in a daze. He could see the expanse of space around him and he could see his friends swarmed by a seemingly endless number of Orange Agents some distance away. Everything was tinged in green though. ‘Wha—?” The young sorcerer was shocked to hear his own voice clearly.

“Sorry for the rude abduction,” Zoe’s voice sounded. Xao spun around to find her floating behind him and realised they were both floating inside a translucent green sphere of light containing a breathable environment. “We can’t fight these Orange Agents forever, they’ll eventually wear us down. I need to take the fight to the Thunderers, and I can sense that they’re down there on Larfleezia. I don’t know why they’re working with Larfleeze, but I intend to find out.”

“And you brought me here to…help you?” Dragonmage asked disbelieving. “Zoe, I can’t just leave the Legionnaires to fight these things on their own!”

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Even Stone Boy is holding his own, you think the Orange Agents are a threat to Mon-El, Ultra Boy or sprocking Supergirl? You said you were here for me and I didn’t want to bring you into this, but it’s too late for that so are you going to help me or not?”

Xao struggled between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to his team. Zoe was the only reason any of them were even here, Xao didn’t feel right leaving them to finish the fight she’d led them to. He felt worse about the idea of her confronting those Thunderers again on her own, especially if they were allied with someone who referred to himself as an orange god. “Very well,” he finally agreed meekly. “I’ll help.”

“Xao Jin, you’re the best friend a girl could ask for!” Zoe threw herself at him, hugging him tight. The bubble flashed away toward the dirty planet’s furthest hemisphere, far away from the main continent from which thee robots were swarming forth. In their wake, a jade dragon small enough to fit in the palm of a young man’s hand zipped off in the other direction away from the planet.

**********

The surface of Larfleezia was a chaotic mess. It had been many centuries since its several large landmasses had featured anything even resembling conventional cities. The entire world now was just a space for Larfleeze to store the many many things he hoarded. Rare gems, discarded machinery and the detritus of generations piled high around the planet like manmade mountains. What had once been a robust civilisation of artificially intelligent machines had for hundreds of years now been nothing more than an extension of Larfleeze’s will. Those who weren’t cataloguing his worldwide collection were preparing to meet their fellow Orange Agents in battle high above their trashpile of a planet. Larfleezia’s atmosphere had long since been rendered toxic to organic beings, and the only two flesh and blood men currently on Larfleezia’s surface were protected by their similarly hued rings.

After billions of years of close proximity to its exotic and mind-warping radiations, Larfleeze now contained the energy of the orange power battery within him. Physically, the self-proclaimed orange god was not particularly imposing. He was long-limbed, wiry and awkward in stance. The sharpened fangs and tusks which sprouted forth from his elongated snout gave him an air of savagery though, and one look into his manically gleaming eyes confirmed his single-minded animal lust. “You try to steal from Larfleeze?!” the ancient alien ranted, spit flying from his bare-toothed snarl. “Pray to your own stupid god that the God of the Orange Light only kills you! Better than what I did to your friends!” He gestured, and a deadly rain of orange hardlight blades rained sideways at the bald stranger who’d invaded Larfleeze’s home.

The stranger’s hastily erected golden shield couldn’t stand up to the assault, and it exploded into fragments which dissipated into the thick soup of air around them. One of the knives slashed his arm, and a second embedded itself in his thigh. “Wait!” the invader called out. “We can help each other! I can help you find all the material wealth you could possibly desire! All I ask is seven little rings and I’ll help make the universe yours!”

“Larfleeze doesn’t help,” the alien sneered, “And Larfleeze doesn’t share. The orange light is mine! Only mine!” Larfleeze gestured at the corpses around him, Thunderers he’d slain. “Then again, maybe Larfleeze should be magnanimous. Have all the orange light you need!” A ray of light beamed forth from the ring on his clutching hand and enveloped the Qwardian corpses. The orange ring scanned and replicated them, and in as much time as it took to imagine the assault half a dozen orange Thunderers were closing in on their former commander. Larfleeze howled with wheezing laughter as the purple-robed bald man pulled out every stop just to survive the attack of thunderbolts and battering shields.

The stranger manipulated two of the constructs into annihilating each other, and despite himself Larfleeze was impressed. Whomever this rash would-be thief was, he knew how to use the green and gold rings he was wielding. Larfleeze had initially thought the man to be a Green Lantern. The Sinestro Corps hadn’t existed for centuries so he couldn’t possibly be a Yellow Lantern. Larfleeze had developed a grudging tolerance of the Green Lanterns though, they were the only sentients he’d even come close to respecting. The members of the Green Lantern Corps were traditionally chosen not just for their dauntless will, but also their altruism and sense of honour. It didn’t make sense that one of them now would reduce himself to brazen robbery. Unless…why was he wielding two different colored rings? Why did he want more? Was he being directly influenced by Parallax or one of the other emotional entities? Larfleeze realised it didn’t matter. He just wanted him dead, and then those rings would belong to Larfleeze. His eyes glinted orange with avaricious desire. His treaty with the Green Lanterns meant he’d never been able to add a Green Lantern ring to his collection of valuables, but really this one had come storming into his house. “...And everything that comes to Larfleeze is mine," he crowed, rubbing his taloned hands together gleefully.

With the disgustingly hairless stranger distracted by Larfleeze’s constructs, Larfleeze himself concentrated on two towering piles of vehicles on either side of him. He visualised enormous orange plates on either side of those piles, and without any hesitation Larfleeze slammed the plates together. The bald man was caught in the middle of the deadly crush, his shocked cry cut short by the sound of hundreds of tons of metal and plastic smashed together. Larfleeze presumed the man must be dead and was about to use his own ring to scan for those the stranger had worn when a female voice caught his notice.

“Larfleeze, right?” Zoe Saugin floated before him in her green bubble, Dragonmage at his side. “What happened to these Thunderers?” She looked down at the broken corpses littering the cluttered battle site.

Larfleeze instantly forgot about his victim. The presence of another Green Lantern here confirmed the truth he’d not wanted to face. His centuries-old treaty really had been broken. The Green Lanterns were as base as any other creature in this universe. “Mine!” Larfleeze exploded in fury. “The orange ring is mine!” Dispelling all finesse, he simply blasted the emerald bubble to nothingness.

Zoe was aghast at the raw power he displayed. Even with her own ring supplementing the energy she’d absorbed from Neon, she had barely kept the force bubble intact long enough to prevent herself and Xao from being obliterated. She refocused her willpower and envisioned Larfleeze in a cocoon of green light. It was a cocoon he shattered with frighteningly little effort. “Mine!” he raved once again, flying straight at her. “Bring two Green Lanterns, bring a million, you’ll never take Larfleeze’s ring!”

Orange hardlight claws extended from his raised arm, but before he could strike at Zoe he found himself entangled in dozens of slithering scarlet snake-like dragons. “What is this?!” he railed. “You have a red ring too?! Larfleeze will take them all! Red, yellow, green, all will be mine!!”

“It’s not any kind of ring,” Dragonmage spoke up. “It’s a simple spell. I can assure you we haven’t come to steal your ring. In fact Sir, I believe we may have a common enemy.”

“Magic?!” Larfleeze shook his head in blind rage. “Larfleeze hates magic!” An omnidirectional burst of orange light tore the dragonforms apart and sent Zoe and Xao flying backwards where they bounced painfully several times before coming to a stop. As they both rose groaning to their feet, the Orange Lantern advanced on Zoe. He formed an orange noose around her throat and lifted her from the ground kicking and gasping for air. Panicked as she was, she couldn’t concentrate to save herself and resorted to clawing at her throat ineffectively. “Now,” Larfleeze sneered while Zoe’s face turned red then purple, “Larfleeze will kill you and take your ring, then Larfleeze will take your friend’s rings and then Larfleeze—“

Larfleeze turned to face the newcomer and was utterly stunned to come face to face with an exact duplicate of himself, right down to the orange ring. “How—“

Before he could make sense of the doppelgänger, he was abruptly flung into orbit. Larfleeze’s twin morphed into the friendlier form of Chameleon Boy, and Light Lad, Fire Lad and Matter-Eater Lad stepped out from where they’d been hiding behind a colossal mound of golden coins. Matter-Eater Lad wasted no time in flying to Zoe’s side. He momentarily deactivated the transuit which was keeping him safe from Larfleezia’s toxic air and with one well-placed chomp he disrupted the orange noose which was still choking the life out of the young Green Lantern. She collapsed into his arms while Light Lad helped support a concussed Dragonmage. “Saved…my life,” she rasped. “Both of us…how..?”

“Dragonmage here sent us a little escort,” Chameleon Boy explained. “When his dragonform phased through the hull of our shuttle, we figured he might need help.”

“Thank you,” Xao grimaced. His head pounded, but he knew he couldn’t afford the luxury of unconsciousness. “I don’t know how much you saw but this Larfleeze is powerful…he was too powerful for the two of us, and I can’t imagine that you’ve inconvenienced him for very long. We should leave.”

“These men are not going to give us any answers,” Light Lad said, looking at the Qwardian corpses around them. “And we saw and heard enough that I believe this Larfleeze person can back up his threat to kill you and take your ring if we stay.”

As the senior Legionnaire present, Chameleon Boy made the decision to take charge. “We’re leaving,” he announced firmly. “Even Jo and the others must be getting tired fighting those robots by now.”

“He’ll just follow us!” Zoe shouted in opposition. “We can fight him on the run or we can fight him here!”

There was a tremendous sonic boom, and before any of the gathered heroes could react Larfleeze cannonballed back in with terrifying force. The impact of his landing sent them all flying and toppled his hoarded piles of belongings. “Mine!” Larfleeze roared triumphantly. “You're all mine!!”

His head bleeding, Matter-Eater Lad looked around at his allies. Chameleon Boy and Dragonmage were out, Light Lad and Fire Lad weren’t much better off. Barely conscious, Zoe nonetheless wobbled defiantly on her feet. “Sorry kid,” Tenzil muttered under his breath. “I can see how that stubbornness made you a Green Lantern, but you gotta learn when to cut and run.” He grabbed the nearest heavy object and smacked her upside the head with it before she could launch an ill-advised attack. “Darvan!” Tenzil bellowed. “Grab Cham and Dragonmage, we’re about to make the galaxy’s most suicidal escape attempt! Hey Staq, how flammable d’you think this pea-soup atmosphere is? You think this Larfleeze guy likes his planet more than he likes the idea of killing us?”

“You’re not sseriouss...” Fire Lad’s jaw dropped as he realised what Matter-Eater Lad was suggesting. Larfleeze created a small arsenal of floating orange guns pointed right at them and Fire Lad made his decision. Suicidal is right, he thought to himself as he inhaled as large a lungful of oxygen as his transuit would let him. Still, probable death beats certain death. He switched off his transuit and breathed a plume of flame into the smog around them. There was a rush of motion as Light Lad’s power released them from gravity’s hold, their field of vision filled with flames and the spike in temperature even penetrated the comfort of their transuits.

Then there was blissful oblivion.

**********

MARS

Husband Hill, Legion of Superhero Headquarters

ROLL CALL

Brainiac 5 aka Querl Dox: 12th level intelligence, team leader

Chlorophyll Kid aka Ral Benem: hyper-stimulated plant growth

Comet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generation

“So that’s the problem.” Chlorophyll Kid completed his monologue with his arms folded aggressively across his chest as he stood in Brainiac 5’s multi-lab. Comet Queen stood behind the former Substitute Hero. She’d been unusually subdued while Chlorophyll Kid had demanded their leader’s attention and explained Grava’s fears about Quislet. Until now Grava had known Chlorophyll Kid as a stammering insecure guy, kind of cute in his own way and sweet as Honeyrock Magma, but she’d never suspected this side of him existed. She was a little awestruck, truth be told.

“Ridiculous,” Brainiac answered without looking up from his latest experiment. “The Legion insisted that Quislet undergo rigorous psychological testing when he first joined the team, and again when he rejoined us. The artificial influence of Fearstorm aside, it’s not possible for Quislet to suffer from any kind of emotional distress. If anything, that’s even more true of him since his return. The fact of the matter is there is very little to Quislet aside from pure hedonism.”

“You think he’s been out partying all this time?” Comet Queen threw her hands up. “You think he wouldn’t tell me if he was?”

“Brainiac.” Chlorophyll Kid moved around so he was in the Coluan’s field of vision. “Can’t you just check? Please? If this were any other Legionnaire, you know you’d be taking his absence more seriously. He’s not even answering direct comms.”

Brainiac sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’d be taking it more seriously because any other Legionnaire takes their role here more seriously. Still, if it’ll earn me some peace and quiet…” He tapped at a button to record the progress of his experiment without him and walked over to a larger console where he entered a command to locate Quislet’s homing beacon. The console breeped rudely back at him and Brainiac frowned.

“No,” Brainiac 5 replied darkly. “The shiny little shuttle is most assuredly not in his hangar. Nor is he anywhere else within his homing transmitter’s range.” He stepped back from the console and thought for a moment. “Come with me,” he said without another word of explanation. Comet Queen looked imploringly at Chlorophyll Kid who simply shrugged, and they both ran to follow their leader’s determined gait out of the multi-lab.

“The shiny— Quislet — is not here,” Brainiac 5 corrected himself. “However, I have a sinking feeling the answer to his whereabouts is.” He uttered a command to override the privacy lock and the door to Quislet’s residence whooshed open. True to his word, Quislet was nowhere in sight. In fact, the room itself was a featureless white void. Only one thing broke the surreal sameness, a small perfectly formed black hole floating in the centre of it all.

Matter-Eater Lad aka Tenzil Kem: can eat inorganic matter in all its forms

Mon-El aka Lar Gand: Daxamite physiology

Polar Boy aka Brek Bannin: cold and ice generation

Stone Boy aka Dag Wentim: ability to transmute to living stone

Supergirl aka Kara Zor-El: Kryptonian physiology

Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: deputy leader, ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

While the rest of the Legionnaires solemnly filed on to a cruiser, Matter-Eater Lad clamped a hand down on Dragonmage’s shoulder. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get to Oa quicker, buddy.”

The shorter sorcerer looked up at his uncommonly serious teammate. “Thank you, Matter-Eater Lad. Please don’t feel responsible though, I know that you all tried your best…and Zoe knows that too. Thank you also for helping us organise this impromptu memorial service, I know it means a lot to Zoe that the Green Lanterns are recognised as heroes. They may not have been in existence for very long, but they did help a lot of people in that time. Zoe’s told me some stories that have made me think they’d all have made great Legionnaires if things were different.”

“I bet.” Tenzil gave an encouraging smile. He looked across the silent cemetery where Zoe Saugin stood alone before a giant green light sculpture she’d created to honour her fallen allies. Zoe herself was surrounded by a verdant aura, the legacy of her fellow Corps comrade Neon. “Do you think your pal’s gonna be okay?”

“I hope so,” Dragonmage answered honestly. “I can’t imagine what must be going through her mind right now, at least she still has her mother and her brother to help her through this.”

Supergirl approached the two heroes. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Kara spoke gently. “Ultra Boy says we’re ready to go. Once we get back to Mars he’s gonna ask Brainy to see if the Science Police will let us help interrogate the Thunderers we handed over to them, and Dawnstar should be able to find that Sodam Yat guy.”

“I’m going to stay here with Zoe,” Dragonmage announced. “You were right, Matter-Eater Lad. She needs a friend right now, and I don’t feel right leaving her alone in case those Thunderers decide to come back and finish what they started.”

“Ultra Boy thought you might say that too,” Supergirl smiled. “He asked me to keep you company if you decided to stay.”

“Thank you,” Dragonmage answered genuinely. “I’m sure Zoe will appreciate the gesture. Do you mind giving me a few minutes alone with her?”

“Knock yourself out,” Kara assented. “I’m only a second away at super-speed if you need me.”

“I’ll see you guys back at base,” Matter-Eater Lad bade his teammates goodbye and climbed aboard the cruiser. Dragonmage and Supergirl watched the vessel lift off, and then Xao Jin walked away from the maid of might to comfort his friend. Supergirl wandered off to look through the various memorials which populated Shanghalla.

Zoe had turned when she heard the Legion’s ship taking off, and she watched now as Dragonmage approached. “I still can’t believe it,” Zoe heaved a sigh of despair. “Neon, Jordana, Kai, Dha-Ta…all of them, just…gone. And we don’t even know why.”

“Madame Chu taught me that death is not the end, but I know that can be a difficult knowledge in which to take solace.” Dragonmage looked up at the larger than life emerald heroes standing bravely above. "You did a great job on the hardlight sculpture, I’m sure they’re proud of your efforts wherever their final resting places are.”

“Thanks. I have all this power now, I needed to do something with it.” She looked upon her handiwork. Sodam Yat had recruited his Green Lanterns from many different worlds, it was going to take some time for Zoe to travel to all of those worlds to contact their next of kin and make the necessary funeral arrangements. It was a task she couldn’t take time to consider at all until she’d found out why the Thunderers had come to slaughter them all and until she’d found Sodam Yat. This sculpture was only a temporary measure to honour her friends, but it was in Zoe’s mind a necessary one. “Xao, you don’t think they travelled from a whole other dimension just to kill us, do you? The Thunderers of Qward were enemies of the Green Lantern Corps once, but they haven’t been seen in our dimension in nearly a thousand years! How would they even know the Corps was rebuilding again?”

“I don’t know,” Dragonmage admitted. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out though, you know the Legion are here for you with this.”

“Thanks again. For everything.” She hugged Dragonmage then pulled back abruptly.

“The Thunderers of Qward.” She stood back and hardened the Green Lantern energy emanating from her to form a protective sheath around her body. “I’ve been scanning for the frequency of their thunderbolts so I’d have some advance warning if they came back for me.”

“They’re here??” He lifted his flight ring to his lips. “We need to call Supergirl! We need to call the Legion back!”

“No, Xao.” She blocked his flight ring transmission without really even being consciously aware she was doing it. “It’s okay, they’re not on Shanghalla. They’re not even in this sector. I’m surprised I picked up their signal at all to be honest, but absorbing the power of Neon’s ring…it makes me feel like I’m capable of anything.” She rose a few inches off of the ground as she was speaking.

“Zoe, I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking…”

“I need answers, Xao.”

“Then we’ll get answers,” Supergirl announced as she came onto the scene, her super-hearing having been pricked by Xao’s earlier mention of her name. “But we’ll get them together. I’ve already called Ultra Boy, they’re on their way back.”

“They’ll have to catch up to us en route,” Zoe replied. “I’m not giving those creeps a chance to destroy anybody else.” She zipped straight out of the asteroid’s artificially sustained atmosphere and was soon nothing more than a green streak shooting into space.

“I wish you weren’t right to be,” Kara Zor-El pouted. “Come on, we’d better get after her.” She wrapped an arm around Xao and sped after the young Green Lantern.

**********

MARS

Husband Hill, Legion of Superheroes Headquarters

ROLL CALL

Comet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generation

Laurel Kent: intern, invulnerability

Nightwind aka Berta Skye Haris: wind control

“You’re really not going to give yourself a codename?” Nightwind asked Laurel Kent as the two walked away from Nightwind’s quarters. “I mean it’s not like Supergirl’s your only option….you could be Legacy Lass, Indestructible Girl, Mighty Maid…”

“You’re really fixated on this!” Laurel made a face at her friend. “I just haven’t found a codename that really clicks...but you know, I have been thinking about changing my costume!”

“About time you got rid of that blanket and put on some real clothes,” Nightwind summoned a breeze to lift up the edges of Laurel’s garment.

“It’s a poncho, not a blanket!” the indestructible teenager protested with a giggle as she held it down with both hands. “And it got me one step closer to being a real Legionnaire, but now that I’m here it might be time for an upgrade! Hey, is that Grava?”

The two girls stopped in their tracks and Berta listened. They could indeed hear their friend Comet Queen making a ruckus somewhere. They raced ahead and found her pounding on Quislet’s door and calling his name. “Grava, you nut!” Laurel stood by her friend’s side. “You’re gonna drum a hole in that door if you keep going!”

“I think it’s safe to say he’s not home sweetie,” Nightwind agreed. “Nobody could sleep through that racket, trust me. Come to think of it, does Quislet even sleep?”

“He’s in there, I know he is!” Comet Queen protested. “The shiny little shuttle locked himself in there when we got back from Titan and he hasn’t come out since!”

“Quislet’s not like us,” Nightwind placed a comforting hand on Comet Queen’s golden-sleeved arm. “Maybe he just needs a little extra time to deal with what happened, it sounds like you guys had a really rough time with Fearstorm. Grava honey, I know you feel things really deeply, but sometimes people just need some space.”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine CQ.” Laurel patted her other arm. “Come on Berta, Saturn Girl will kick both our butts if we’re late!”

The two girls ran off down the corridor, and Comet Queen went back to banging on Quislet’s door. Grava knew that everybody else thought she was a little loopy, even her closest friends…and maybe she was, but she also knew that Quislet needed her.

Standing in the imposing shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, Tel Vole took a moment to admire the way the sunlight gleamed off of the pristine blue waters of the Bay of Cocody before he turned back to his fellow students at the highly exclusive Legion Academy. “Looks like this place was nice once before those Judgement League jerkwits got to it,” Gravity Kid remarked. Spots of damage marked the otherwise proud city, the last remaining signs of the League’s battle with a psychologically unbalanced geokinetic. Truthfully, much of the damage here had been caused by the League itself.

“It wasn’t always that way,” Saturn Girl replied, standing before the students with her husband and Nightwind on her left. “Local wars nearly destroyed the city altogether 400 years ago, but the people of Neoabidjan rebuilt the city bigger and better than before. Now it’s the second largest metropolis on this continent. Considering the work Terrans put into restoring Neoabidjan, it would be a shame to allow the Judgement League’s excesses to spoil that.”

“Oh sprock,” Dragonwing folded her arms across her chest. “I just realised what this is…we’re on clean-up duty? Come on!”

“The locals have made good headway already,” Lightning Lad took over from his wife. “They don’t needour help, Brainy offered our help as a goodwill gesture to Earth. And it’s a good opportunity for you kids. But I know it’s not as exciting as combat drills, so we’re going to make a little contest out of it. Nightwind here has been kind enough to help us referee.”

‘My pleasure,” Nightwind gave a small smile. “Uh…is Glorith okay?”

The hooded sorceress was visibly disturbed, but she shied away from the attention. “I apologise,” she mumbled. “It is nothing to be concerned about, I have merely divined an unusual amount of mystical energy in the area. I had to take a moment to re-attune my senses.”

“In that case,” Lightning Lad continued, “Let’s get on with it. Glorith, Kid Quantum, Lullabye Lad, Variable Lad; you four are with Saturn Girl and Nightwind. Laurel, Gravity Kid, Chemical Kid, Dragonwing; come with me. Your instructors will monitor your efforts over the next 90 minutes and whichever team has done the best job of repairing the damage that’s been done to Neoabidjan, congratulations! You’re going to Atlantis for the weekend!”

“Atlantis!”

“No way!”

“Teacher, how exciting!”

“Right then!” Garth released a blast of lightning into the sky to draw attention from his hyper-enthused class. “Let the contest begin!”

**********

Fifteen minutes later and after no small amount of clashing egos, Lightning Lad watched his squad at work. Gravity Kid was the eldest student at the Academy, and along with Laurel Kent, he was the one most dedicated to membership in the Legion of Superheroes. His ambition was admirable, as was his control of his powers. Right now he was airlifting piles of rubble to a central location where Dragonwing used her own powers to destroy anything which couldn’t be recycled.

Of all the students, Marya most reminded Garth of himself. She was hotheaded and had a chip on her shoulder, but she was essentially a good person. She would need to soften her edges and learn to play well with others, just as Garth himself had needed to learn that lesson once upon a time.

Laurel Kent’s power was purely defensive and duplicated by half a dozen Legionnaires. Until Garth actually took over teaching duties at the Academy, he would never have seriously considered Superman’s descendant Legion material. He’d always secretly assumed it was misplaced affection for Kal-El which had let her join the Academy in the first place, a belief he knew several of the Legionnaires shared. She’d really impressed all of her instructors though, even moreso since she’d come out of her Manhunter-induced stasis. While she didn’t share Gravity Kid’s humourless drive for perfection, Laurel had heart. She’d taken the younger kids under wing more than her peers did, and she never failed to stand up when she perceived injustice from any quarter. She’d also found some clever uses for her invulnerability, such as crawling through the remains of the Southern Neoabidjan Powersphere Exchange with sensitive scanning equipment looking for harmful radioactive materials to be neutralised by Chemical Kid.

Chemical Kid got under Garth’s skin the most. His power had perhaps more potential than anybody else here, but he didn’t have anywhere near the maturity to appreciate it. He saw Legion membership as his ticket to fame, and was a demonstrated bad influence on the others. Maybe there was more than one student after all who reminded Lightning Lad of himself in his younger days...

A mild earth tremor ran underfoot, catching Lightning Lad’s attention. He asked the four students under his care to call in, and mentally marked each one off once they’d confirmed they were safe. Gravity Kid was the last one to respond, and he sounded a little distracted. “Lightning Lad, you’d better come see this,” the level-headed boy’s voice sounded over Garth’s flight ring. “I’m a few kliks away and there’s still quite a lot of damage in the area, I’m not sure of the address. I’ve activated the homing beacon in my ring though so you can find me.”

Lightning Lad called the others even as he took to the air. “Laurel, Chemical Kid, Dragonwing, stop what you’re doing if it can be left without endangering the public and converge on my signal. Gravity Kid may need some assistance.” The three caught up to their teacher in no time, and soon the brightly coloured quartet soared over Neoabidjan’s grid of streets. Three entire city blocks looked like a war zone, only the occasional building left half-standing. Gravity Kid’s flight ring was transmitting from within one of these buildings. “Be alert,” Lightning Lad warned the others. “Watch one another’s backs.”

The building no longer existed above the third level, and the four of them easily descended through the lack of a rooftop and entered a doorway looking for Gravity Kid. Garth noticed straight away that it looked like someone was still living here. Take-away food containers and drink bottles littered the room. When they found Gravity Kid, he wasn’t the only person they found. Floating before them suspended in a bubble of anti-gravity was the former Judgement Leaguer known as Golden Boy.

“Are you kidding me?” Gravity Kid retorted. “You were hiding here waiting for us! How did you know we were going to be here?”

“I didn’t know anything!” Golden Boy snapped. “We came here after the fight in Metropolis, we needed somewhere to hide out till we could get off-planet and half of Neoabidjan’s in ruins! It’s the last place anyone would look for us, how did you find us??"

The ground trembled again, slightly stronger than before. Garth wondered if they were readjusting seismic stabilisers in the area before something entirely different shook him. “You said we,” he addressed Golden Boy. “We who?”

Chemical Kid had been keeping an eye on the stairwell, and he tried to bark a warning about the golden blur he now saw running up the stairs but he didn’t get more than the first syllable out before a super-speed fist connected with his jaw and knocked the Phlonian teenager out. The others turned, but they may as well have been moving in slow motion. The assailant hit Dragonwing and Gravity Kid next, Tel’s anti-gravity bubble falling as he did. Before Golden Boy had even touched the floor, the blur was on Laurel. The speedster's onslaught came to a rude end when she slammed her fist into Laurel’s jaw with a bone-crushing crack. “My hand!” Sprint screamed, holding her forearm as she finally stopped running. “You broke my hand!”

“No, you broke your hand when you decided to hit an indestructible girl,” Laurel returned, completely unharmed by the assault. “I broke your face.” She slammed her own fist into Sprint’s face and knocked her out in one hit.

“You little—“ Golden Boy poised to rush Laurel until a well-placed lightning bolt hit the ground an inch from his foot.

“Uh uh uh,” Garth wagged his finger. “You stay right there until this is all sorted out or the next one gets you right in your shiny butt.” The ground shook again, and this time the building itself trembled.

“Laurel, call Imra and ask her to scan the city for any more of these losers. We don’t need any more surprises.”

**********

Saturn Girl listened to Laurel’s explanation, then used her incredibly powerful telepathy to scan the city for any sign of Golden Boy and Sprint’s former teammates. “They may be using tech or their own powers to hide from psi-scans,” Imra noted, “But from what you’ve described, I’m inclined to believe Golden Boy’s story and that Gravity Kid just lucked upon their hideout. Still, I’ll collect the others and join you all. Better to be on the safe side when it comes to the Judgement League.”

Imra was already keeping an eye on Glorith and Kid Quantum and she telepathically updated Nightwind on the situation so she could gather Variable Lad and Lullabye Lad. Garth and Imra had broken up the class the way they had quite on purpose. The students Imra and Nightwind had taken were all accustomed to being led by their louder and more confident classmates. Imra and Garth had wanted to see how they worked together when they were forced to make their own decisions. It didn’t surprise Saturn Girl that Kid Quantum easily took to the task. Despite being the newest and youngest student there, her prior experience in Xanthu’s military education system and as one of the Uncanny Amazers had prepared her well.

Glorith on the other hand was a mystery. When Mysa Nal had enrolled her in the Academy, it had been under the proviso that her past remain unexplored. Glorith had been desperately homesick at times, and everybody knew she’d love nothing more than to go back to the Sorcerers' World and leave the Academy and the rest of the United Planets behind. Mysa had insisted on Glorith’s presence here though, and to her credit the unworldly young girl gave her best at all times. Imra noticed that Glorith and Kid Quantum had begun to form a friendship despite their vast differences, and it was something that Imra wanted to foster. It might give Glorith a reason to want to be here aside from just keeping her beloved mentor happy. Another tremor rumbled through the city, this one building slowly in intensity until Imra was worried that it might actually become a full-fledged quake. “Don’t panic,” she addressed the girls under her care. “But I think we should use our flight rings to stay off the ground until this subsides.”

“This is not natural,” Glorith frowned.

“Doesn’t the Sorceror’s World have tectonic movement?” Kid Quantum asked her new friend.

“It does not,” Glorith replied, “But that is not what I meant.” She cast Saturn Girl a serious look. “These are not the natural movements of theEarth. There is magical force behind these tremors, a very unsettled magical force.”

“Come on,” Saturn Girl took to the sky as she telepathically contacted Garth and Nightwind.

“We’d better join up with the others.”

**********Nightwind had been watching Variable Lad and Lullabye Lad work together to clear a damaged food storage facility when the tremors started. Berta had felt uneasy since arriving in the city, though she’d brushed it aside to concentrate on the task assigned to her. She felt sorry for Lullabye Lad; while the multi-tendrilled form which Variable Lad had taken on was perfect for carrying debris from one point to another, Waiane Wentim’s unique power to induce sleep was just as useless here as was his native Zwennite ability to transform himself into an immobile stone form. Nightwind remembered only too well being sent on missions with her fellow Academy students where her own powers were less than helpful, and she’d burned with shame and feelings of self-consciousness to begin with. Eventually she’d come to terms with the realisation that some situations were simply beyond her power and she’d learned other ways to contribute, but Lullabye Lad wasn’t quite there yet.

“Nightwind?” Lullabye Lad asked with an uncertain inflection to his voice. “Is that part of the contest?”

He pointed to a spot in the middle of the abandoned building’s cracked floor where dirt and stone bubbled upwards like an earthen fountain.

“Stay away from there,” Nightwind instructed the boys. Saturn Girl, she thought across Imra’s mind link, I think Glorith is right. Whatever’s happening here is more than just malfunctioning seismic stabilisers.

The boys yelped in shock and Nightwind prepared to chastise them for disobeying her until she saw that two more of the disturbances had popped up right near them both. The rising earth matter formed into sturdy faceless humanoids and lurched toward the heroes. “My power has no effect on it!” Lullabye Lad panicked as the silent creature advanced closer to him.

“Use your flight ring!” Nightwind commanded. “Get out of that thing’s reach!” Waiane followed her order without delay, and once she was certain that he was at a safe distance Nightwind summoned a powerful gust of wind to smash her own attacker into his. The two golems shattered into pieces that had already begun reassembling, and the sense of unease Nightwind had been feeling escalated into dread. “Variable Lad!” she called out. “Do you need help?”

“No thank you, Ms Nightwind.” The boy was currently twelve feet tall and almost the same width, with thick muscular tentacles growing all over his powerful form. That kind of etiquette from such a monstrous looking creature was certainly surreal. “The worker form I’ve taken on should be more than sufficient to deal with this threat,” he explained as two of his rough-hide tentacles gripped and tore the golem limb from limb.

“Don’t let your exuberance get ahead of you, Variable Lad.” Saturn Girl appeared from above, Glorith and Kid Quantum descending beside her. “These creatures aren’t alive, but you should have confirmed that before taking such destructive action.”

“My apologies, teacher.” His voice was crestfallen.

“No harm done, just something to keep in mind.” Imra stayed airborne, outside of the golems’ reach. “Nightwind, these creatures are popping up all over the city, we saw them on our way here. Can you please take Lullabye Lad and help defend the city? Glorith thinks there may be a consciousness behind this. Variable Lad, Kid Quantum, you two cover Glorith and myself. I’m going to help her try to make contact with whomever is behind these attacks.”

“Me?” Nightwind looked from Glorith to Saturn Girl and back again. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, but I’m only an air elemental. Rock monsters are a little outside my wheelhouse.”

“The magic animating these constructs is ancient,” Glorith stated simply. “And you are touched by that same magic. There is an angry spirit behind all of this, one who feels a kinship with you, Legionnaire.”

“A kinship?” Berta’s blood ran cold. Could this be one of the women who shared her bloodline’s enchantment over the elements? She’d read about the Judgement League’s encounter here months ago, they’d killed the woman responsible. Was her spirit now somehow trapped in the Earth itself? Did Nightwind’s very presence here wake a ghost? Berta hadn’t had much luck in her previous encounters with her so-called sisters, she wasn’t optimistic that today would turn out any better. Still, she wasn’t the student here. Time to step up. “My powers are mystically inherited,” Nightwind explained. “There are other complimentary elementals as well, could this…angry spirit…be one of those women?”

“It is possible,” Glorith acceded. “Saturn Girl, I believe we will have a more positive outcome if Nightwind assists.”

“It can’t hurt,” Imra agreed. “Admittedly, I’m not at all an expert when it comes to magic so I’m going to let you pilot, Glorith. The rest of you, make sure we’re undisturbed.”

“Sure,” Lullabye Lad said glumly as he watched Variable Lad and Kid Quantum take out more of the unliving creatures. “Whatever y’say, teach.”

Glorith placed her hand over Nightwind’s heart and began chanting. Her words were barely more than a whisper, but Berta seemed to feel the pulse of each syllable. The yellow-skinned Legionnaire felt a lurching sensation as though she were falling out of her own body, and she gasped as her very perceptions changed. An intense blue-white glow emanated from Glorith, a paler pink light shining forth from Saturn Girl to subsume in Glorith’s power. Nightwind saw the lines of mystical energy feeding through each of the golems and connecting into a web of light beneath the surface of the ground. I’ve linked our minds as well as our senses, Saturn Girl explained telepathically. I thought it might be easier for Glorith to lead us through what we need to do if we can see what she sees.

Glorith closed her eyes and continued chanting, the markings on her face growing brighter as her sorcerous aura reached out towards the earth below them. The rainbow of Glorith's power connected with the tendrils of white energy feeding through the golems. Like dye dropped into water, it diluted through the geomantic web. The young sorceress finally stopped chanting, a look of intense concentration on her face. Saturn Girl, I have made contact.

Saturn Girl’s power reached out through the medium of Glorith’s sorcery and Imra, Glorith and Berta were barraged with a kaleidoscope of imagery and fragmented memory. They saw the life of a young woman who had been in and out of Earth’s psychomedical system for most of her tortured life. Marka Tarov's power over the earth had emerged as soon as she reached puberty, the same time she was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Medication and psychiatric treatment had kept both her power and her inner demons under control for some time but when a xenophobic Earthgov made it impossible for more than half of the alien medical staff responsible for her care to remain on Earth, Marka had fallen through the cracks. Her power had flared out of control, and the Judgement League had brutally murdered her. Her story would have ended there, but her eternal rest had been disturbed by the presence of Golden Boy and Sprint in her city along with her elemental sister. Now she would lash out until the ex-Judgement Leaguers were dead or this city was levelled. The earth shook once more, rumbling louder and louder, and this time it wasn’t subsiding. Forcing even this kind of vague one way communication with Marka seemed to be only enraging her further, so Glorith shut off their connection and Saturn Girl allowed the mind-link to follow suit. “What’s our next step?” Imra asked Glorith. “I sympathise with her greatly, but we’re not going to let her kill two people, and the longer this carries on the more all of Neoabidjan is at risk.”

“I do not know,” Glorith admitted sadly. “I am not powerful enough to exorcise Marka Tarov from the Earth itself, and now that her thirst for vengeance has woken her I suspect she will not rest until that need is complete.” The young sorceress saw Nightwind beam a wide smile and looked upon her questioningly. “I do not understand what mirth there is to find in this dilemma?”

“Not mirth,” Nightwind answered. “Just a crazy idea. You said the need for vengeance woke her, right? And we need to put her to rest?” Glorith still didn’t comprehend, but both Saturn Girl and Nightwind fixed their gaze on the one hero present whom they knew could end this.

Lullabye Lad fiddled with his cape and bit his lip. “Uhh, sooo…why are you all looking at me like that?”

**********

METROPOLIS

Science Police Headquarters

Nightwind and Officer Dvron stood side by side as they watched droids lead a newly cuffed Golden Boy and Sprint toward the cells buried beneath the Science Police’s global headquarters. Dvron scratched his mop of fiery red hair. “Busy day for you, Legionnaire! Snagged these two and stopped an honest to sprock ghost!”

“I did very little to be honest,” Nightwind deflected his praise. “I wasn’t even there when Gravity Kid found Sprint and Golden Boy, and you can thank Lullabye Lad and Glorith for saving Neoabidjan! If anything, me being there might have been what triggered that poor girl to attack the city in the first place. Hopefully she’ll be at peace now after Glorith helped Lullabye Lad channel his power to put her to rest again.”

“I guess the Legion Academy must be doing a good job with those kids if this is what they’re capable of already,” Dvron smiled.

“Yeah,” Nightwind returned his smile. She felt a warm rush of pride. “The Academy does do a good job.”

Dvron’s omnicom beeped at him, and he excused himself and read an incoming report. His smile faded instantly. “Something I can help with, Officer?” Nightwind asked.

“Some of your pals in the Legion faced an incursion from Qward on the planet Oa, they gave us the Qwardians they captured and SP psi-ops just finished their interrogation.”

“Not any more,” Dvron answered soberly. “According to this, the Green Lantern Corps have been killed…I’ve been called in on this because I’m the SP liaison with your team, and word from above is that we’re going to need the Legion’s help on this. According to our interrogation, the Qwardians didn’t just want the Green Lanterns dead…